


it all comes back to this

by loseyoutoloveme



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Baseball, Bets & Wagers, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Secret Crush, Unrequited Love, is an overarching theme but you dont need deep knowledge of it!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 41,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23437048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loseyoutoloveme/pseuds/loseyoutoloveme
Summary: None of it matters because Jaehyun Jung is in your living room. You need to repeat that three times fast because your drunk mind will not get over it if you don’t.Jaehyun Jung is in your living room. Jaehyun Jung is in your living room. Jaehyun Jung is in your living room.You need to get out of here.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Reader
Comments: 70
Kudos: 215





	1. peachy keen

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy the fruits of my quarantine induced labor! the second part is done, i just need to edit it and i'll be posting soon
> 
> baseball is a theme present in this fic, but you don't have to have any sort of deep understanding of it to get what's going on. feel free to shoot me a message/i made sure everything is easily searchable on google!

Johnny is an enabler.

There’s no other word for who he is as a person but an enabler. He both commissions and facilitates every crazy ordeal the two of you have been through since you met on the first day of high school - case in point, the incident with the goats your freshman year at Northwestern. Sometimes you wish he’d keep his grubby little hands out of your god damn business, but he’s your self-dubbed platonic soulmate and you love him, thus you inevitably end up going along with every plan of his. So, it’s no surprise that it all starts with him.

You’re lounging on your living room couch, trying to both position the fan in front of you to receive maximum coolness and emotionally prepare for the night to come when he leaps over the furniture, coming to a crash beside you.

“Johnathan,” you chide him as you increase the fan settings. “Must you be so belligerent?”

“Fuck you,” he retorts as he reaches over your legs for a beer. “Sehun doesn’t care what I do while I’m here.”

You groan out loud, holding the noise in your throat for thirty seconds longer than you should,

“You and Sehun are two peas in a pod, of course he wouldn’t care that you repurpose my living room to practice parkour or whatever nonsense. I still don’t understand why this party had to be thrown at our apartment.”

Johnny’s forehead furrows at your negative attitude. “Wait, Sehun told me you were excited for this party.”

“He what now?” Some of your beer makes its way down your windpipe in your surprise and you choke for a solid five seconds before bellowing for your roommate, “Sehun Oh!”

As if on cue, the door to Sehun’s room opens, and he saunters out in a fog of his delicious Louis Vuitton cologne, “You called, babydoll?”

You sneer at him from your spot on the couch,“Why is Johnathan under the impression that I’m skyrocketing out of my shoes to have a bunch of strangers in my apartment?”

Sehun had met you and Johnny on the second day of high school, and has known about your penchant for introversion ever since. Nothing about you screams that you’d be pleased to host a cohort of rowdy, drunk hooligans in your pristine Upper East Side apartment. You suppose you’ve waited too long to voice your displeasure.

Johnny pushes at your shoulder before Sehun has a chance to reply to you, “You’ve been in the city for over a year and I’ve never seen you hang out with anyone other than, well, us, and that kid who works at the sports bar on third. Would it kill you to finally meet some of our wholesome work friends?”

“You are not wholesome,” you retort, rolling your eyes between the pair of your best friends. They work at one of the bro-iest law firms downtown, a move that they had planned together after graduating in tandem from Columbia Law. Wholesome would absolutely not be the right word to describe Johnny and Sehun’s coworkers. “And what are you, my dad?”

“My point still stands,” Johnny crosses his arms and cocks his head towards Sehun, trying to plead with him to soften your stance.

“Well, for one, it’s my apartment too,” Sehun starts with, something that won’t sway you since he knows you hold all guest veto power. But the slant of his brow melts, and the two of you exchange a look that you’re sure Johnny won’t decipher. “And two… you know.”

And you finally remember the original reason why you’d agreed, a conversation you’d had with Sehun two weeks ago after he’d tiptoed into your room and curled himself into your plush comforter.

_I um, I think he’ll be invited. And that’s why I’d like it to happen on home turf. I’d feel better if it was that way. More comfortable._

“ _Oh,_ ” you sigh carefully, and you know Sehun is asking you to do this for him. You love him too much to say no, so you concede defeat by pulling another beer out of the carton and cracking the top. “Fine. But it’s October Twenty-Eighth.”

“October Twenty Eighth?” Johnny asks as he glances confusedly at Sehun, who’s smiling in appreciation at you. “What is she on about now?”

Sehun grabs the remote control from the table beside him and tosses it to you. You catch it with ease and flip the TV on, leaning back into the couch. Sehun eyes your relaxed posture and chuckles,

“October Twenty Eighth means that tonight is game one of the World Series. She’s okay with having people over if they do not disturb her watching baseball. How could I know this and not you? You’re the baseball player here.”

You raise your beer to cheers your friend’s correct interpretation of your statement.

Though Johnny had actually played baseball in high school and at Northwestern, even he couldn’t come close to your level of fandom. Though the Yankees lost in the first round of the playoffs, you’d begrudgingly started to root for the Dodgers for a variety of different reasons.

Johnny rubs his forehead in annoyance, though he has no leeway to do so, “Are you kidding me? The Yankees aren’t even playing for the chip this year. I still don’t understand why you root for them when we’re from Illinois.”

You level him with a look so fierce he actually cowers against the couch cushion. “You know my dad was from New York.”

“Okay, okay. I got it. We do need the table for pong, though.”

You sneer, and then snatch your laptop off the wood.

“Wait, wait,” Johnny stops you before you can get up to start moving the rest of your stuff. “Did Mark tell you to watch the game? Maybe he can come hang! I haven’t seen that kid since before we graduated.”

Your heart actually sears into your throat, burning you with such an intense ferocity you almost forget to breathe for a second. Just the sound of Mark’s name sends tears burning into your eyelids, your fingers fluttering with anxiety. The idea of him, him here in your apartment, it’s just too much.

“John, I—,” Sehun tries to alleviate the tension that Johnny clearly doesn’t notice, through no fault of his own. Johnny has no idea just what is going on with you, the true reason behind why you decided to move to New York from Chicago last year. Sehun is one of the only people who knows, and he had only found out by accident, after he had caught you drunkenly crying during one of his visits home

But the two of them deserve this party, they deserve a small respite from the long hours of hard work they slog through at the firm, and you can’t ruin the night with your problems.

Turning off the TV instead, you force a smile on your face and quickly pick up your scattered papers and books before any morsel of your hurt seeps through.

“I just don’t like the Astros,” you make up the excuse as you toss the stuff into your room and shut the door behind you. “And on second thought, I think I need something stronger than this beer.”

“There we go!” Johnny whoops as he snatches the bottle from your hands, and the moment the first shot of vodka slithers down your throat, that little pinprick of your history is wiped away in an instant.

—

You’d never admit it, but maybe you’d been wrong about Johnny and Sehun’s coworkers.

Of course, in a gathering of this many men, there are bound to be a few bro-y duds, but you’d identified and avoided them to the best of your ability. For the most part, though, they’re pretty cool and so unlike the coders that populate the floor of your little startup’s building.

“Wait so you’ve never been to a hockey game?” Lucas, one of the newest paralegals, slurs a little as he wobbles on the barstool next to you. “That’s like completely blasphemous!”

“No, no, I said I’ve never been to a hockey game in New York,” you giggle a little at the way his innocent face scrunches in displeasure. “Don’t worry, Mr. I Like Sports.”

You clink your glass against his and chug the rest of your vodka soda, the pleasant buzz of alcohol allowing you to pointedly ignore the growing mess and debauchery around you. Not that it mattered though, your generous salary would definitely cover hiring a cleaning crew to scrub the place tomorrow.

Lucas spills more than a little Grey Goose in his rush to re-fill your drink, babbling along the way, “One of the partners has box tickets to the Rangers, you should come with us next time.”

“Y/n is off limits, Wong,” Sehun’s arm is around your shoulders, glass of whiskey tipping precariously in his hand. “I’m establishing that rule now.”

You pinch at your best friend’s sides, eliciting a yelp from him and a cackle from Lucas.

“Sehun, isn’t this the Lucas that has a girlfriend back in Hong Kong?”

“Yup!” Sehun pops the _p_ in _yup_ , completely oblivious to what you’re implying. Lucas, on the other hand, looks completely over the moon that you’ve somehow heard of him before, and starts clapping in drunken bliss.

“Then why would he be asking me out?”

“I…. I don’t know!” Sehun pouts as he tries to think about what you’ve just said, and from somewhere to your right you can hear the front door open and close.

The partygoers all cheer loudly at the sight of whoever’s walked in, but Sehun’s body tucked into yours blocks your view of the foyer. Not like you’d know who they were, anyways, but you’d like to keep tabs on the number of people in the place.

“Wait, come here for a sec, cupcake. Be right back, Wong.”

Before you can crane your head to look, Sehun is grabbing you around the waist and hurrying you into an empty side hallway, pressing you up into the wall where you’re out of sight.

You try to look once more, but his arms on either side of you keep you trapped. You see the sweat that’s started to bead against his pristine temple and ask, “S, what is going on?”

He doesn’t turn his head but his eyes flick around the corner of the wall, “Look, there he is.”

“Who?” Sehun’s left arm gives oh so slightly, allowing you to finally catch a glimpse of the small group of people that’s just made their way into your apartment.

There’s four of them, two men and two women. Front and center is a very handsome older man, white dress shirt looking incredibly out of place amongst the band tees and ripped jeans that the other partygoers had come in. You look up to Sehun, and back over to the newcomers, and you know your best friend enough to just know that’s who he’d told you about that night in your room.

“Oh. That’s him?”

The corner of Sehun’s lip quirks up ever so slightly, “That’s him.”

“He’s very pretty,” you concede, and you really want to look again, to start building a folder of fodder you can tease Sehun with. “Wow. You weren’t exaggerating when you said he looked like he walked right out of a paint—,”

You finally manage to duck under Sehun’s arm, escaping his grasp, and are able to take one more step forward before the woman in pink beside the handsome stranger moves slightly to her right. The words die in your mouth at the sight of the second man in the group.

You have to grab the corner of the wall, because there’s just no way.

“Who’s that woman with him?” Sehun is murmuring into your ear as he cranes for a better view as well, but the heartbeat thundering in your ears is doing you absolutely no favors.

A shake at your shoulder. “Y/n. Y/n, are you listening?”

You’re not.

Because Jaehyun Jung is in your living room.

Suddenly, you’re grateful that Sehun has brought you away from the thick of things, because you’d be exposed if you’d stayed in the kitchen with Lucas. You shake your head once as you lean back against the wall, as if the motion will help expel what you just saw from your brain. It doesn’t.

“Sorry, Sehun, what did you say?”

“Who is that woman with him?” Sehun asks, suddenly nervous. “Have you seen her before?”

Even if you knew this mystery man, you wouldn’t have known the woman with him, but none of it matters because Jaehyun Jung is in your living room. You need to repeat that three times fast because your drunk mind will not get over it if you don’t.

Jaehyun Jung is in your living room. Jaehyun Jung is in your living room. Jaehyun Jung is in your living room.

You need to get out of here.

Never mind that this is your apartment, it doesn’t matter. You can definitely leave, it’s nothing. Kyungsoo’s shift has just started at The Wolf, you can hang there until the party dies down, you can’t be seen here in this apartment, here in this _city_.

There are a thousand excuses buzzing around your mind that could lead to your escape. A beer run that extends into the night for no good reason, a need for chasers, tortilla chips, fresh air, something, anything…

“Y/n, get over here!” Johnny shouts, and his no-joke lung capacity gives you away.

The room goes silent, save for the blare of whatever Young Thug nonsense you had turned on earlier, and there are two dozen, ten-thousand pairs of eyes on you. You and Sehun aren’t standing in a particularly provocative position, but you’re alone, and in the dark, and it’s a party, so you quickly jump away from him before anyone can do the same and jump to conclusions.

Why, oh why, had you let Sehun convince you to change into a tiny, flirty dress and why, oh why, is the skirt fluttering around you as you slowly make your way back over to the kitchen?

You don’t need to look to know he’s looking, and you don’t want Johnny to say anything, to point anything out. You brace yourself for the macabre of it all. That they’ve somehow known all along.

“You need to fill your god damn cup!” Johnny bellows happily instead and you obediently hold out your drink as he sloshes way more vodka than is necessary into it.

Johnny is momentarily distracted by Sehun re-emerging, which allows you to gather up the ginger ale with your bruised wits and tender little heart and make your way out onto the balcony of your apartment.

The crisp fall wind does its best to bribe you with promises of some sobriety that you really need, but it’s all just one bit too much. Your fingers struggle to pour the ginger ale into the cup correctly, and the drink you take is just a few seconds too long. This isn’t like the twenty-five year old you of the present, it’s you, twenty one and tipsy and in this one specific corner of the NCT house basement. Has it really been that long?

“Hey.”

The fact that you don’t drop the cup and bottle immediately upon hearing his voice is the greatest physical feat you’ll ever accomplish. You eye the crosswalk below your apartment building, counting down the ticks of the stop hand to calm your surging emotions. _Four, three, two, one_ …

“Oh. Hi.”

The NCT house had been incredibly dark that night, but you still remember what Jaehyun had looked like then. The Jaehyun of now is not a far cry from the Jaehyun of then, with honey brown hair instead of black, blue flannel on in place of a ripped green fraternity tee. Same dimples, same pretty, pretty eyes, same strong hands around a tumbler of the same whiskey.

_Gaze back to the crosswalk, y/n. Back to the crosswalk._

“I didn’t realize you lived in the city,” same voice, melodic and wonderful and _of course_ the years had been kind to him.

You take another sip of your drink, the perfect cover to allow your voice to come out innocently neutral, “Yeah, I moved here last May.”

A choked noise leaves his throat in surprise, and he comes a step closer to you, “We’ve lived in the same city for almost half a year and I’m just hearing about this now?”

“Is it that much of a surprise?” You ask, semi-rhetorically, finally looking over to catch the way he frowns. You continue,“I mean, this is like the third conversation we’ve actually had in person. You’re probably not the first recipient of y/n news Johnny thinks of, nor me of you.”

In person is an important modifier, because, well…

“Right,” Jaehyun answers a bit tightly, caught off guard by the brusque way you’re approaching the conversation.

You want the conversation to end, but can’t risk the chance that he’ll turn back and head into the party, deterred by who you are as a person. So you decide against your better judgement and press on, “So you, uh you work at the law firm too? Baseball didn’t work out?”

His hand fidgets against the glass, “No, ah, the deal with my father was that if I didn’t get drafted, I’d go to law school.”

You remember working the Northwestern home games, handing the well-known Senator Jung a program before he made his way to his requisite seat behind home plate. The fact that Jaehyun’s standing in front of you and not off in some stadium, bat in hand, is more than enough to let you know what end of the deal he’d been forced to take.

You dig deep into your archived conversations, trying to recall something specific, “Let me guess. Princeton, like your dad?”

The dimple in his cheek pops when he smiles and answers, “Harvard.”

You roll your eyes, “Of course.”

You’d meant the comment to be lighthearted, but he’s clearly taken it the opposite way. The dimple melts away as he frowns,

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You hate that you still hate to see him sad, and you work quickly to undo your mistake, “I mean, you’re Jaehyun Jung. Chapter president of Nu Chi Theta, captain of the baseball team, and perennial dean’s list member. It’d be an insult to Harvard if you didn’t grace it with your presence.”

It’s true, Jaehyun was the pinnacle of pinnacles, the cream of the crop, the one person at all of Northwestern that actually deserved the pedestal he was placed on. And you, well, you were just you. That was always made perfectly clear to you.

“Anyways, I passed the bar in May and moved to New York the next week,” Jaehyun interrupts your internal pity party. “By the way, why wasn’t the TV on when I came in?”

It’s such a random question. “What? What do you mean?”

He pulls out his phone, tapping over to the calendar and opening the day so you can see, “It’s October Twenty Eighth. That means tonight is g—,”

A little of your drink spills onto your hand when you see what he’s saved into his agenda, “Game one of the World Series.”

You haven’t spoken to him in more than three years, but he still remembers. This is definitely that stupid night once more, an extremely twisted demonstration of deja vu, because you’re wearing red again and haven’t grown out of drinking vodka sodas and Jaehyun Jung is looking at you in a way that you can’t decipher.

Like he knows you, really knows you, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t.

“Baby love!” Sehun’s yell after he pokes his head through the crack in the sliding glass door is enough to startle you out of whatever conniption you’ve worked yourself into, causing you to miss the way Jaehyun’s eyebrow shoots up in surprise at the pet name.

Sehun doesn’t notice either, only slapping his coworker across the back, “What’s up, Jung?”

“H-hey Sehun,” Jaehyun stutters as Sehun barrels past him and yanks your arm, starting to pull you back into your apartment.

“I need a partner for pong,” Sehun declares as you struggle against him. You know that balcony is the place you’re supposed to be, that is the spot you were supposed to spend the rest of your night in. With Jaehyun.

“Why?” You whisper through gritted teeth as he brings you into the kitchen. “You could’ve just asked Johnny or Lucas.”

The handsome man Sehun had pointed out earlier is standing at the opposite end of the pong table, laughing as one of the women from before tells him something, and Sehun’s grasp tightens across your wrist as his voice lowers.

“That’s his girlfriend, y/n. His _girlfriend.”_

Oh.

Now you know why Sehun couldn’t ask Johnny or Lucas.

You’ve played this role for him dutifully and without fail since that second day of high school, and you’d do it forever and every time he asked, destiny of the balcony be damned.

Not that it matters, though, because by the time you look back to where you had been standing only seconds before, the woman in pink is beside Jaehyun, and you get a front row seat to the way his hand settles comfortably low on the small of her back.

Forcing the unpleasant sensation down into the recesses of your mind, you turn back around and stick your hand out to introduce yourself to your opponents,

“Hi, I’m y/n.”

“I’m Suho Kim, senior associate at LS&M Law,” he replies, then gestures to the woman beside him, who is just as pretty as he is. “This is Irene, my girlfriend.”

You want to hate her, hate him, hate them both, like a dutiful best friend should, but they’re drunk and sweet and funny and you’d want to go out in the city with them if you weren’t Sehun’s first.You’ve always been good at pong, and so has Sehun, and before you know it, you’ve demolished half of Suho and Irene’s cups and earned yourself a small audience.

Johnny and Lucas, like you should’ve expected, are betting on the match with drinks that you know Johnny will end up buying, Ten and Taeyong are choreographing some kind of cheerleading routine, and because of course, Jaehyun’s there too, sitting on the corner of the couch, his girlfriend’s? hand draped over his shoulder as he watches you play. You’re behind Sehun at the table, but feel embarrassingly on display.

It’s all going swimmingly, you’re more than halfway to the win when Suho sinks his first cup and Irene kisses him full on the mouth in celebration. There are hoots and hollers and lascivious cheers but you can feel the hurt radiating off Sehun, know that this is more than a crush, know that Sehun actually has feelings for this man that he can never act on now.

But when you look over to see Jaehyun’s girl lean over to whisper something into his ear, well, that’s a different story entirely.

You tell yourself it’s because you hate to see your very best friend oh so very sad, and to make him feel better, you let Sehun call you princess and sweetheart and sugar muffin. When you win the game of pong on three shots in a row, you let him kiss you on your cheek.

When you raise yourself onto your tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek in return, you tell yourself one last time that you’re doing it for Sehun.

Johnny’s sleeping over as usual and Ten and Taeyong stay to help clean up after everyone _(everyone)_ has left, and you seriously think you might’ve spent an hour thinking up a clever way to bring up what you’ve wanted to bring up without giving yourself away.

It’s not until Johnny turns on the TV, catching the tail end of the sports report, that you have the perfect segue to do so,

“Why didn’t you tell me Jaehyun Jung worked at your firm?”

Johnny is unfazed, still focused on the report of the Dodgers’ victory, “What? You hated him, didn’t you?”

That’s certainly a surprise to you, you don’t think Johnny’s ever seen the two of you interact, moreover conclude that you somehow had a deep hatred for his former teammate, “Hate? You thought I hated him?”

“Well you didn’t really like him, that’s for sure,” Johnny shrugs, neither here nor there. “What did you call him, Mr. Big Shot?”

“Mr. Big Flop, if I recall correctly from our many Skype calls,” Sehun muses from where he’s arranging the beer bottles. Though he’d gone to Columbia instead of Northwestern, something you’ll never let him live down, you and Johnny had called him enough times for him to know the characters of your college life exceedingly well.

You cringe, thinking of the first time you’d ever seen Jaehyun play baseball, the way he belly flopped, missed the ball, and single-handedly lost Northwestern the game against Illinois. You really shouldn’t have made up a nickname like that. But at the time, you had been so aggravated by frat boys and baseball players alike that the insult had come naturally.

“Who cares about Jaehyun, didn’t you guys find the fact that Suho brought his girlfriend incredibly weird?” You can tell by Sehun’s forced casual tone that he’s doing the same thing as you, fishing for information. “Senior associates never bring their significant others to hangouts.”

“Wait yeah,” Johnny nods his head in agreement. “I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend. Also, now that you mention it, T, I didn’t know Jae had a girlfriend, either?”

This is the one question you definitely didn’t have the courage to blatantly ask, and you thank whoever’s up there that Johnny did it for you.

Taeyong leans over the kitchen counter and smiles slyly, “I don’t know about Suho, but Jaehyun doesn’t really have girlfriends… he has his ladies.”

Ten snickers at the explanation and Sehun just groans, “What the hell?”

Johnny nods, like that reveal wasn’t something ridiculous and far-fetched, “Wait, no, Tae’s right, I think. He always had girls to bring to frat formals and baseball date nights, mostly rich sorority girls that were daughters of his father’s friends. I guess that probably extended to Cambridge, and now Manhattan, which is definitely not surprising.”

And you can remember that yourself, Wendy Shon at the Christmas baseball banquet, Krystal Jung at NCT’s final formal, and even that night, he’d shown up with Joy Park on his arm.

“I mean, for five hundred million dollars,” Taeyong gripes as he finishes wiping off the marble. “I’d do anything my father wanted.”

“I, I think I need to go to bed,” you mutter to no one in particular, and scurry off into your room before Taeyong can bring up the _ladies_ again.

You take your sweet, sweet time getting ready for bed, washing your face twice and doing a facemask, despite the fact that it’s pushing three thirty in the morning. You braid your hair, brush your teeth, and even change the sheets on your bed before there’s finally nothing left to do but climb in and burrow yourself into your comforters.

Your phone, left unattended on your nightstand, is currently engaged in a taunting song and dance with your consciousness, daring you to pick it up and search up what you want to see.You haven’t upgraded your phone since graduation, haven’t changed any settings or deleted anything off of it, so everything that you remember is definitely still on it.

Once again, you ignore your gut screaming at you not to, and pick up the device.

Opening up your messages, your thumb hovers over the screen for one second longer, before you’re scrolling away to the bottom. J, J, you’re looking for messages that start with J but you get to the bottom, an ignored text from Bobby in Iota Kappa Nu, yet you still don’t see any messages from someone with a J name. Your fingers tap impatiently at the back of your phone, and you idly wonder if you’d deleted his message thread after graduation, so sure that you’d never see him again.

Then the memory explodes through your brain in a dangerous inferno. It’s almost as dark in your room as it had been that night. Your ears are still ringing the same way.

_You don’t have to text me, I’m right here…Wait, why is my name just Jaehyun (baseball) in your phone, hold up._

Your finger starts to move again, screen flicking past threads from your old physics TA, your college land lord, and the Evanston pizza delivery guy, and then you see it, the same old thread, the thread you’ve never told anyone about, the same do not disturb moon present in the corner. Closing your eyes, you tap open the message, and you know exactly what it says.

> [2017 May 22, 12:30 am] **my mvp:** let me know when you land  
> [2017 May 22, 4:40 am] **you:** landed. thanks again

Though you know for sure this is your string of messages with him, you need proof, you need some sort of evidence that you still have your text messages with Jaehyun, that these are in fact his, that once upon a time, you had had the courage to talk to him. At least, over the phone. That’s why you had to make that distinction, that your conversation tonight had still been only the third time you talked in person.

> [2016 Dec 17, 3:40 pm] **my mvp:** hey, tell johnny that he needs to come by before 5 to pick up his bats. that’s when im leaving for break  
> [2016 Dec 17, 3:41 pm] **you:** who the fuck is this  
> [2016 Dec 17, 3:41 pm] **my mvp:** sorry, this is jaehyun from the baseball team, johnny said i could text you bc his phone broke  
> [2016 Dec 17, 3:41 pm] **you:** oh  
> [2016 Dec 17, 3:41 pm] **you:** ok

You remember that day clearly, how Johnny had dropped his phone into a keg at the last party before winter break, how you had admired the way the fresh snow looked over the expanse of the lake through your window right before the text came through. How you had mutedly greeted Jaehyun at the door of his apartment for only a second before Johnny retrieved his gear and you got the hell out of there.How despite the fact that you opened the conversation with an aggressive profanity, you and Jaehyun had texted the entire break.

How, upon your return to Evanston, he saw you on campus while he was with his brothers, and promptly ignored you. How he texted you again that night as if nothing was wrong, how the message he texted you made you feel nothing you’ve ever felt before.

> [2017 Jan 13, 7:25 pm] **my mvp:** i’ll never get over how pretty the lake looks with a new coat of snow

You keep reading, and it’s not until the first rays of cheerful morning sun peek through your curtains that you make it to the most recent message, one that’s certainly not from three years ago.

> [2020 Oct 29, 3:27 am] **my mvp** : it was nice to see you tonight

—

A week later, you’re about to get on the subway when a text pings through from Johnny.

> [6:45 pm] **suhtupid idiot:** do or die game 6 @ wolf, be there or be a fuckin cube

You’ve had a long day, you’re not exactly in the mood to not be in bed, but the promise of a cold beer and one of Kyungsoo’s roast beef sandwiches is too much to ignore. What you don’t expect, however, is a huge group of people calling you over when you walk into the bar, not just Johnny.

“Jesus, y/n,” Kyungsoo mutters as he passes you a glass of some random IPA he’s selected. “Is that your fanclub or something?”

“Johnathan,” you sigh deeply, already feeling a headache brewing in your temples. “I met his work friends the other day.”

Someone else at the bar is trying to get Kyungsoo’s attention so you point him over towards the patrons. Before he leaves you he taps your hand with his, his ever-present comfort doing little to soothe your anxiety,“Holler if you need me.”

You take a big swig of your beer and plop into the open seat across from Johnny, mutedly nodding your head at the group of guys around you, “Hello.”

You should’ve done a better job at surveying the table, because when you look to your right, Jaehyun is there, observing you, and not the TV like the others, with interest.

“Hey, you already have a drink?”

He hasn’t greeted you loud enough to catch the attention of anyone else, so this conversation is just going to be the two of you. You gulp down a few more mouthfuls of beer, hoping the buzz will give you the courage to talk with Jaehyun alone once again, managing only,

“Bartender goes to my gym. We’re friends.”

He moves his own beer over so you have enough space to stretch out your arms, a thing you note idly, and fixes you with one of his too familiar, too paralyzing smiles,

“So I never asked the other day, what are you doing in the city now?”

“I do communications for a start-up,” you answer blandly, sure that he won’t give a shit about theminute details of your life.

But you should know him better, because you’ve lit the spark and Jaehyun curiously asks, “Oh, what kind of start-up is it?”

You wave a hand, “I don’t think you came to happy hour to discuss work, it’s fine.”

“No,” he actually shifts in his seat so he’s looking at you straight on, tucking his hand under his chin as he listens intently. “I want to know.”

This is now the fourth time you’ve had a direct conversation with him in your life, the fourth time his pretty amber eyes have locked with yours, and it’s the same struggle now as it had been the very first time.

“We, uh,” you nervously tuck a lock of hair behind your ears as you struggle to maintain some aura of professionalism. “We reach out to schools in under-developed and under-funded areas and give them new computers and coding classes. The idea is that the more money we invest into the project, the more likely these kids are to go to university and get jobs in the future.”

“Oh? Y/n, that’s amazing! You’re probably helping so many kids.”

God, how is his smile still so breathtaking, how can he be the most beautiful person in New York City, no, Jaehyun is probably the most beautiful person in the world when he smiles like that. 

“Yeah,” it’s hard not to smile yourself when the person beside you is radiating such happiness. “It’s been pretty rewarding so far. And the salary isn’t half bad, either.”

He laughs at your joke, light and airy and wonderful, and you’re pretty sure it’s not just the beer that’s bubbling in you, and he continues, 

“I’m pretty sure you stayed in Chicago after graduation, right? So, you randomly found this job and decided to move to New York?”

“Um,” your words catch on your tongue, heavy with an amalgamation of lead and concrete. You could tell him this. He kind of knows part of it already. It’d be okay to tell Jaehyun this. It’d really be okay.

You won’t have to make the decision, though, because you feel someone kiss your cheek and call out to you in a similar fashion, 

“Hey, sweet cheeks!”

“Sehun,” you murmur in acknowledgment, and Jaehyun immediately turns to face the TV. You notice that your friend is not alone, and when you see the other man you realize why Sehun had greeted you in that manner. “Oh, hello, Suho.”

“We’re here too!” A feminine voice rings out from a few feet behind the men, and you wish you hadn’t turned your head to look.You also wish that Sehun hadn’t chosen that exact moment to drape his hand across the back of your chair, because you’re privy to the exact way Jaehyun’s eyes catch the gesture.

“Irene? Jennie?” Johnny’s eyes narrow at the sight of Junmyeon’s girlfriend and Jaehyun’s… friend. “You don’t even like baseball.”

You slap his hand on the table lightly, “Johnathan! Just because they’re girls doesn’t mean they can’t like baseball.”

“No, we hate baseball,” Jennie replies dully at your feeble attempt at defending her, before she realizes Jaehyun is right there and composes her tone into something flirtier. “But we like drinks and hanging out with you guys.”

Doyoung and Kun get up to retrieve a couple extra chairs, and you just know that Jennie is seething when Jaehyun scoots his chair closer to you so she can sit on the other side of him. You can’t really think about that when you feel Sehun’s fingers in your shoulder as Suho and Irene barely acknowledge each other’s presence. Weird, considering how lovey-dovey they were at your party.

You look over at Sehun, the raise of your eyebrows asking a silent _What is that about?_ and Sehun shrugs. Before you can start to whisper in his ear, Johnny interjects.

“Yo, Verlander is on a win streak, isn’t he?”

“He went seven scoreless in game one I’m pretty sure,” Jaehyun answers confidently, running his fingers through his hair in the same ultra cocky way he used to do so before putting his baseball cap on. 

“He’s going to choke today,” you mutter under your breath, more to Sehun than anyone else. “I have a feeling.”

Jaehyun’s grin is downright mischievous at your fighting words, eyes flashing as he turns to face you, “Want to bet?”

“Of course I do,” you still remember how you’d won your Super Bowl bet in 2017, and how he’d had to Venmo you twenty dollars after you’d correctly predicted a Patriots win. “If Verlander wins and the Astros make game 7, I’ll buy five of whatever drinks you want. If the Dodgers win, you gotta buy me five.”

It’s the simplest bet, it’s the weekend, the potential last game of the World Series, and you’re already at a bar. Whoever won would get their punishment over quite easily. 

“Alright, y/n, it’s on,” Jaehyun extends his hand for you to shake and seal the bet, but you’re not okay with holding his hand in any capacity, not even a handshake. That, that is a line you just can’t cross, not now, not ever again. That night was enough. 

You instead point to the huge monitor, where the game is about to start. 

Verlander winds up, long leg bending at the knee, and fires the first pitch. The batter swings, and the ball goes over the fence. Home run, 1-0 Dodgers. 

You let out an enthusiastic whoop as Jaehyun groans, but you don’t want to get too cocky. Baseball is a turbulent game, and anything can happen. You’re sure the next pitch is going to be a fiery strike, but he launches the ball and it hits the batter right on hip, sending him to first base. 

It’s all downhill from there. Verlander loses control and walks the next two batters, loading the bases. The next pitch is thrown right over the plate, and the Dodgers batter launches it out of the stadium. Grand slam. 

You recline as far back as you can go in your chair, clinking your glass with Sehun’s in smug revelry, feeling confident enough to trash talk, “This dude is such a clown. I could’ve gotten out of the first inning and I haven’t played baseball since I was five!”

Johnny sighs, your rants familiar to him, “Don’t be an asshole. You know how baseball is, he threw a shutout the last game. It’s probably just an off day for him.”

Though Jaehyun is surely upset, well on his way to losing the bet, he can’t help but laugh at the two of you arguing, the note of mirth so clear and bright. He opens his mouth to enter the fray but Jennie is tugging on his sleeve, his attention claimed, the note of mirth in your ears replaced with a note of disappointment that shouldn’t be there.

For a World Series game, the back and forth becomes pretty boring after the first inning. You and Sehun start talking about work and other nonsense topics, and when Suho and Irene icily stand up to get the next round of drinks for the table, you nudge Sehun’s side,

“So, what the fuck is up with that?”

“I don’t know!” Sehun exclaims under his breath, looking around to make sure no one is listening to your conversation. “The two of us left the office together and she just showed up! I don’t think he was happy about it at all.”

You recognize the look on his face, the one indicating he’s deep in thought about something, and you gently take his hand. 

“Sehun…” you warn, not wanting him to overanalyze any of this. “They’re probably just in the middle of a fight.”

“I know, I know,” Sehun sighs sadly, and you lean your head into his shoulder. “I just, I thought I was right about someone this time.”

Even though he’d gone to college in probably the most progressive city in the country, Sehun’s love life had never taken off in the way he’d wanted it to. While you encourage Johnny to live his best single life as much as you can, you want nothing more for Sehun to find his person. Of course, they’d tried to do the same for you, but between school, now your job, and everything going on in your crazy mess of a personal life, that just… hadn’t happened.

The poignant moment of reflection is broken by one of the Astros players on the screen diving for a ball and missing. His body awkwardly splays over the grass in the outfield, allowing two more runs to score for the Dodgers, and everyone at the table bursts out into laughter.

“Oh my god,” Johnny wheezes out in between his cackles. “He should be the next Mr. Big Flop!”

“Johnathan…” you grit out, bugging your eyes out to silently tell him you would kill him if he brought this up for real.

Johnny’s eyes dart over to where Jaehyun’s glancing over and shrugs sheepishly, “Oop, sorry.”

“Doesn’t sting any less now,” Jaehyun holds up a hand to his heart in mock hurt, and for a second you believe him, that he’s been deeply wounded by your nickname for him. 

“I’m, um, I’m sorry about that,” you apologize quietly, the first opportunity you’ve ever had to do so

“Don’t be, I’m kidding,” he bumps your elbow with his and you draw your arm back into your torso at the sensation, too shocked by his casual gesture to do anything else. “One of my buddies at Harvard found my lowlight reel and made a dubstep remix of that fall video. Let me send it to you.”

He pulls up YouTube on his phone and takes a few seconds to find aforementioned video, sending it to you through iMessage. The notification lights up on your screen moments later.

> [2020 Nov 4, 9:52 pm] **Jaehyun Jung:**<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahpb3QSCOGk>

“Hey, wait,” he scrutinizes the tiny words on your phone, illuminated brightly against a picture of you, Sehun, and Johnny on your first day in the city “Didn’t I change myself to something different in your phone once? MVP something?”

_What the fuck is my MVP supposed to mean?_

_You must know that I won team MVP this year…._

How is twenty-five year old you still manifesting her life through her twenty-one year old counterpart? How is Jaehyun’s face outlined in ribbons of remembrance, is it possible that he remembers that night too? That he hadn’t been as drunk as you thought? 

“Final out, get up everyone,” Johnny bellows as your whole table gets up with the rest of the bar, the claps and cheers starting to swell through the establishment. “It’s the final out!”

You echo Johnny in place of telling Jaehyun the exact explanation behind his former contact in your phone, yelling, “Final out!” and standing on your chair, allowing Sehun to hold your legs so you won’t fall over in excitement.

You hear Jennie’s confused whining as Jaehyun tugs her to stand up with him, “J, J, what’s going on?”

“Shh, shh,” he tries to quiet her. “It’s the final out.”

The first pitch of the out is a strike, and the yell from the bar is so loud that you involuntarily wobble on the chair, despite Sehun’s grasp on you. You feel a hand come to steady your leg and you realize that Jaehyun’s reached out to catch you involuntarily. He’s given no other indication he’s done so, his eyes still locked onto the screen before him. 

You wish that you’d changed into jeans. Because the heat of his palm sizzles through the thin fabric of your dress pants, straight into the back of your knee.

Two pitches later, the Dodgers have won the World Series.

“Ahhhh!” You scream in delight as the bar erupts into chaos at the win. You can’t resist sticking your tongue out at Jaehyun, reveling in your victory. Those drinks he owes you now are going to go a loong way tonight. “Suck it!”

“I hate the Astros anyways…” he groans, though you know that the cost of five drinks is absolutely nothing to him. But somehow, despite that, his expression lightens. “On the bright side, Mark must be happy - you should call him and celebrate!”

You almost fall right off the chair right then and there.

You hate Jaehyun a little for remembering that at all. But beyond that, you fucking hate that you scrolled back through all those messages, and fucking hate your stellar memory even more for recalling the exact exchange.

> [2017 Feb 13, 12:15 pm] **you:** omg mark just called me! the dodgers are going to sign him this year  
>  [2017 Feb 13, 12:15 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** WHAT  
>  [2017 Feb 13, 12:15 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** that’s fucking fantastic y/n holy shit!!!!!!!!!! i’ve never met him but i’m so proud of him????????  
>  [2017 Feb 13, 12:15 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** we have to celebrate  
>  [2017 Feb 13, 12:16 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** what ru doin tmr

Johnny claps hands with Jaehyun over the table and vigorously nods in agreement at his friend’s idea, “Yeah, you should definitely call him! He must be over the moon.”

Even Sehun, the one who usually tiptoes around the topic in polite deference to you, seems to concur, “It might be good, y/n. Don’t you think?”

You can’t say no, because that will open a whole can of worms that you don’t want to explain right now in the middle of a rowdy ass bar.

“I, uh, I. Yeah, let me do that now,” you croak out, the alcohol suddenly drying out your throat as you hurry your way out of the bar, the cold night air scorching its way into your lungs as you struggle to breathe.

Leaning heavily into the brick wall of the bar, nothing you’re doing is calming your thundering heart rate. Of course you’re not going to call. Johnny, Sehun, and Jaehyun would be none the wiser. They didn’t follow you out, so you can continue to effortlessly lie to them like you’ve been doing this whole time. You can’t call, you’ve respected that request for so long now. You can’t call. You can’t.

But god, this is Mark you’re talking about. Mark, with his floppy pink hair, Canadian charm, and sunny California smile, and his childhood favorite team, _his_ team, just won the World Series. How can you not call? You’ve had the number memorized since the moment you bought him the phone, and now is no different, the muscle memory of your fingers over the digits activating in an instant.

The call goes straight to voicemail, but you don’t even have time to be disappointed before the message tone is beeping ominously in your ear and the words are spilling out, tumbling violently all over the sidewalk.

_Hi, um, it’s me. I haven’t called in a while, I know, but I’m still sorry about that. The Dodgers won the World Series! You must be so excited. Give me a call if you can. I miss you. I love you._

You start coughing the moment the call ends, spluttering for breath in the middle of the sidewalk, the two sides of your heart cleaving apart with the effort it took to compose the message. Staying stoic for the past three years, not reaching out, how had you even done it? It was unfathomable that you had accepted that so easily, that you hadn’t tried your very best to call him every day. You were so bad, you were awful, it was all because of you—,

“Hey, are you okay?”

You yelp in surprise at the sound of whoever’s joined you outside of the bar, but you’re only startled by the intrusion, somehow not actually surprised to see Jaehyun in front of you, hands shoved deeply into his pockets. The sound of glee is still evident from inside the bar, but he’s removed himself from the thrill of it all just to check on you. He is still his twenty-one year old self. It’s still him.

“Yeah, work called me while I was leaving a message for Mark,” you’re too lightheaded to explain, to talk to him, to return, to do anything right now. “I, I gotta go.”

Now he really looks concerned, and his hand starts to come out of his pocket to reach for you. For a moment, you allow yourself to think about how nice that would be, to have his arm around you, to actually hug him once again, but he decides at the penultimate moment not to touch you, fingers disappearing back into his pocket. 

“But your drinks?” Jaehyun questions instead, probably a safer route for all parties involved to take. “Everyone’s still in there celebrating!”

“Another time, okay?” You sigh heavily. Alcohol isn’t the solution to this problem. “It’s really fine, really.”

The dimple in his right cheek pops as he chews absentmindedly on his lip, “You won the bet, though.”

“It’s really okay,” you’re desperate now, you need to get out of there no matter how badly you crave his comfort. “I’ve just, I’ve just got to go.”

True to form, he lets you go, but there’s a message on your phone in the morning.

> [2020 Nov 5, 7:31 am] **Jaehyun Jung:** lmk if you’re alright

—

Remember when you said Johnny is an enabler? Well that’s so fucking true, because Johnny enables his own laziness, and apparently, Sehun’s too. Which is how you end up in the middle of your kitchen, trying to figure out how you’re going to bake two dozen cookies and a pie for the firm’s Friendsgiving event. They somehow roped you into doing this so they could go on a bar crawl with some of their rec league friends, and really, they’re lucky you’re not putting poison right into the batter. 

You have to wipe your hands off on your Yankees apron when you hear your phone go off. You prepare to send a snarky text to one or the other, stopping in your tracks when you see a different name on the screen. 

> [2020 Nov 20, 8:35 pm] **Jaehyun Jung:** what ru doing rn

After you called Mark outside of The Wolf in October, Jaehyun had texted you the next morning to make sure you were okay. And just like that, your whatever it was-ship had resumed just like you were back in college all over again. 

> [2020 Nov 20, 8:36 pm] **you:** baking, why  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:36 pm] **Jaehyun Jung:** bored  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:36 pm] **Jaehyun Jung:** hey wait are you baking for sehun???  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:37 pm] **you:** yea, and johnny. they both signed up for dessert  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:37 pm] **Jaehyun Jung:** hold up  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:37 pm] **Jaehyun Jung:** if i buy you one of those hypothetical drinks i owe u, can u bake for me too? i also signed up for dessert but was going to just get something from trader j’s  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:37 pm] **you:** you already owe me those drinks…  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:37 pm] **you:** but whats another pie i guess  
>  [2020 Nov 20, 8:37 pm] **Jaehyun Jung:** great be right over

You had thrown your phone in annoyance after stupidly agreeing to add yet another item to your growing list of baked goods, and hadn’t bother to check it after. It isn’t until the blueberry pie is in the oven that you read Jaehyun’s last message. 

> [2020 Nov 20, 9:10 pm] **you:** wait wtf

But it’s too late, because as soon as the message registers as delivered, there’s a knock on your door. 

When you open it, Jaehyun is a flustered mess, thrusting a load of bags into your arms as he tries not to drip rain water all over the foyer of your apartment. 

“Here, here, I brought wine and two kinds of pie crust, that was all I could find at Duane Reade.”

You peek into the plastic bag, and surely enough, there are two stacked circles of pastry. 

“You bought me pie crust?”You ask, laughing in disbelief.

“Yeah, you said you were making pie,” Jaehyun gives you this look like he can’t imagine why you would think he _wouldn’t_ pick up pie crust.

“I already made the crust,” you gesture back to the kitchen, where the dough is resting, waiting to be put in the tin. But the way his face falls, so disappointed for some reason, sends you right into damage control, “No, no, thank you. I, I really appreciate it. Come in.”

Ae he takes off his shoes and coat, you unwrap the pie crusts, trying to think of some way that you can use them and show your appreciation for his kindness. Then, you finally catch a glimpse of the wine. Johnny’s parents had gotten him some of this exact cabernet for his graduation and you know they shelled out a pretty penny for the bottles.

“Wait, this wine is really fucking expensive, I didn’t mean you had to get me something like this,” you demur as you heft the bottles back in forth in your hands. You thought he’d buy you, like, a handle of Tito’s or something.

Jaehyun bows in mock servitude, then reaches over to your drying rack and plucks out a wine glass, “Let me pour you a glass, your highness, to thank you for your good deeds. And what kind of stuff are you making, anyways?”

He pours the crimson liquid into your crystal glass while you move around him to grab your oven mitts, peek into the oven, and take out the cookie trays when you see they’re sufficiently browned. 

“Johnny wanted peanut butter snowball cookies and Sehun wanted blueberry pie, as always. The cookies are done and the blueberry pie has about thirty minutes left, so now it’s just the peach pie.”

You point out the bowl of carefully chopped peaches that’s resting by the pie crust, and the way Jaehyun blushes is akin to the sweet, sweet blushed tones of the delectable fruit.

“Oh.”

“Hmm?”

He plucks out a cube of the fruit from your bowl, the sugared confection staining his lips as he eats it, “Peach pie is my favorite.”

“Um, yeah. I, I know,” it is your turn to blush, the crimson rush of blood under your skin intermixing with the heat from the oven for the rosiest of complexions. “You and Moon beat Johnny and Henry in the Nu Chi Theta pie eating contest senior spring, and you only ate the peach.”

“You remembered that? I didn’t think you were there for that long.”

> [2017 Mar 14, 4:45 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** wait were u at the nct pi ur bro event ? i saw someone in a yankees cap but wasn’t sure if it was u  
>  [2017 Mar 14, 4:53 pm] **you:** yea, i was there but had to leave to study  
>  [2017 Mar 14, 4:54 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** right, bio midterm on mon  
>  [2017 Mar 14, 4:55 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** i saved u a slice but guess ill eat it :( 

Who didn’t remember that, to be honest? Is there any way to forget the truly obscene way they went at the pies, the exact and painful way you had to watch him and his mouth move the peaches around in his dish? Johnny had gotten three date party invites off his apple pie prowess alone, you can’t imagine what sort of numbers Jaehyun pulled after his performance. You’d remember peach pie for a long time.

But of course that’s not something you can ever admit, so you curve the topic, “Can you grab me the powdered sugar? I need to measure it out for the cookies.”

“Yeah, which one is it?”

You busy yourself with putting the crust in the tin, gesturing vaguely over to where you keep your baking supplies, “It should be in a Ziplock bag, on that shelf.”

Jaehyun looks through the pantry, pulling out boxes and tins, finally pulling out the aforementioned bag of powdered sugar.

“Is this it?” He asks, and you can’t help but laugh because how can he not know what powdered sugar looks like? Everything else you have is neatly labeled, by process of elimination he should know what it is.

He reaches into the bag like a heathen and pulls out some of the powder, bringing to his nose to sniff, like somehow the smell will make it obvious. Puffs of sugar tickle his nose, making his face scrunch and he sneezes, sending the powdered sugar all over you. You look down in surprise at your navy, pinstriped Yankees apron, now painted with a supernova of wasted sugar dust.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You growl, though you’re not entirely mad. You’d already gotten flour all over yourself. 

But whatever fake anger you hold dissipates as Jaehyun lifts a hand to brush some powdered sugar off of your nose. Three years, three god damn years, and there’s that same heady thrill that detonates within you when his skin brushes yours.

His fingers flit lightly over your forehead, brushing specks off the high curve of your cheekbones and the soft bridge of your nose, making your eyes water slightly in irritation before fluttering closed. As soon as you feel your eyelashes brush your cheeks, you’re pelted by another barrage of powder.

Your eyes fly open and you’re met with the sight of Jaehyun holding the bag like a weapon in his left hand, his right filled with powdered sugar and primed to attack. You just stand there, completely taken aback that Jaehyun Jung is once again in your kitchen like he belongs here, throwing fucking powdered sugar at you, and it’s that moment of inaction that allows him to teasingly throw that handful of sugar into your face, making you sneeze too.

“I really fucking hate you sometimes,” you complain loudly, before proceeding to chase him out of the kitchen, your hands outstretched to catch the back of his sweater. Your words don’t rile him up in any way, in fact he just sticks his tongue out from in between his teeth at you, eyes crinkling in mirth.

Jaehyun can run faster around the island in the middle of your dining room than you can, so you can’t quite reach him, and he takes that opportunity to continue to throw sugar in your face, laughing at your increasing frustration.

Finally, you get an idea and reverse the direction you’re running. You collide into him at full speed on the other side of the island, causing him to spill sugar all over his face and the front of his maroon pullover. 

“Whoops,” you giggle innocently, gesturing to his face. “You’ve got a little something right there.”

He frowns and reaches over to the kitchen counter to pick up something you can’t see. Before you can stop him, he smashes it clear across your face. As you feel the gooey mess drip down your cheeks, you realize that he’s just smashed _an egg_ on your face.

For some reason you find this simply hilarious.

You start laughing so hard almost to the point that you’re guffawing, you’re doubled over, clutching your stomach with laughter. It’s a chain reaction, him hearing you react like this, because he starts laughing equally as hard, letting out a very un-Jaehyun-like snort and slapping his knee. It’s not long before he’s slumped over the counter, shoulders shaking in laughter. You take that opportunity to reach around him and grab an egg.

“Hey! Jung! Wake the fuck up,” you taunt, lying in wait as he slowly raises his head up.

When his eyes meet yours, you crush the egg square on his forehead. This was not the right move. Not at all. You’ve never been Jaehyun’s opponent on the baseball field, but you’ve just activated his competitive streak. He growls ferally and jumps up, grabbing the egg carton so he can start pelting you with eggs. In an effort to defend yourself, you snatch up the nearest carton of vegetable oil and drench him with it, launching handfuls of flour to follow up. 

It’s not long before you’re both sticky and gross and covered in baking goods and you’re out of breath from yelling and laughing.

Wiping the egg out of your eyes, you catch the timer on the oven about to go off, and rush to take the blueberry pie out of the oven before it burns. Luckily, you catch it in time, and the delicious aroma of the tart fruit spills into the air when you open the door.

“Hey,” Jaehyun muses lazily as he watches you busy yourself with the bubbling pie. “Remember when you and your dance club had that fundraiser senior year where people could shove a plate of whipped cream in your face?”

Though you’d had one foot in the door at that point, the underclassmen had managed to get you to come out for the charity event. Johnny spent an hour getting all the whipped cream out of your hair that night.

You shrug, “Yeah, why?”

The little smile on his face then could’ve powered a thousand generators, “I really wanted to pie you then.”

Your hand slips on the oven handle, causing you to stumble a bit in your shock, “What….”

“Yeah, because that would’ve given me an excuse to come up and talk to you,” he admits quietly, not fully able to meet your eyes after his revelation.

Jaehyun noticed you on campus? And beyond that, wanted to come up to talk to you? And even more, didn’t think he could?

“Wait,” you shake your head, trying to make sense of the unfolding timeline. “You knew who I was before you texted me that first time? That fundraiser happened in September and we didn’t meet until right before winter break.”

“No, I mean, well, I didn’t realize it was you until you showed up at my door with Johnny that day,” his fingers trace idle circles in the scattered flour-sugar mix as he recalls the story. “I saw you on campus all the time and wanted to talk to you. I called you pie girl in my head until I figured out your name.”

The depth of his earnest embarrassment is evident across the galaxy of his face, and it pools thickly in your stuttering heart. _I called you pie girl in my head._

“Whatever you say, Mr. Big Flop,” you tease, reverting back to your dark, sarcastic defense mechanism. 

The nickname doesn’t faze him, because he’s looking at you now, The Look From That Night.

“Did you ever?”

His question is too ambiguous for you to safely answer. “What?”

“Did you ever want to know who I was?”

You always knew who he was. From the moment Johnny had joined the baseball team your freshman year in Evanston, you knew exactly who Jaehyun Jung was. But your life had been filled with Mark’s teammates, with Johnny and Sehun’s friends, with annoying frat boys in your classes and in your dorms. Why would you ever go out of your way to know one more? Especially one that made you feel supremely and obviously inadequate in every possible way?

The answer slips out before you can stop it, “No.”

That is probably the worst thing you’ve ever said in your life, solely due to the way Jaehyun’s face collapses in disappointment, how his eyes shade in misfortune, like he had been hoping you’d thought of him that way for that long. 

You have to make it right.

You gently spoon the peaches into the crust, tender but apologetic smile dancing across your features. You wish you would’ve been brave enough to go up to Jaehyun in college, to allow yourself to get to know him.

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like, I, well. It wasn’t you. You probably heard from Johnny what I was like. I don’t think I would’ve wanted to know any frat boy or baseball player other than him. I didn’t even feel comfortable enough to start going to his social events until I was a senior.”

That’s enough to staple his wounds shut, because the teasing grin is back, the same quirking eyebrow and flashing dimple. “But…”

“No,” you press your lips shut and shake your head because you know what he’s prying for.

“Say it,” Jaehyun wheedles lowly, craning his neck so he can see you, even with your downturned eyes. “Say it.”

“You were different,” you whisper, snatching up the pie crust so you can finish plating the pie on the opposite counter, one where you didn’t have to look at him and his giddiness. 

“Fuck yeah, I was,” he pronounces smugly, leaning back in his chair with a self-satisfied smirk. And then, oh so quietly, so sure that you won’t hear, but unsuccessful nevertheless, “You were too.”

> [2017 Apr 5, 1:43 am] **you:** mr big floooooooop  
>  [2017 Apr 5, 1:43 am] **you:** im rly fckuin drun k but ihavetosay  
>  [2017 Apr 5, 1:43 am] **you:** ty for not bnige a total fcuking asshole frat douche  
>  [2017 Apr 5, 1:44 am] **you:** in teh words of our lord and savor 2 chainz, u r diffrent  
>  [2017 Apr 5, 1:45 am] **jaehyun (baseball):** haha  
>  [2017 Apr 5, 1:45 am] **jaehyun (baseball):** you’re different too, babe

—

“Tell me again why we’re wearing Nutcracker sweaters that say… _Buttcrackers?_ ” You scratch at the collar of the green monstrosity, trying to flatten the bulges where your dress straps visibly press through.

Sehun examines the pair of you in the mirror in the lobby of the hotel, clearly pleased by your appearance, “It’s an ugly sweater party, pudding pop.”

“Those are truly hideous,” Johnny guffaws, taking a swig from his flask and passing it over to you so you can gulp down a mouthful of tequila. He’s one to talk, his Snoop Dogg _Night Before Christmizzle_ sweater isn’t much better.

“But why do we have to match?” You complain after you’ve wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “Why couldn’t I wear my _I’ve got hos in different area codes_ Santa shirt?”

“Y/n,” Sehun murmurs, and you remember exactly what event you’re walking into.

“Oh. Right.”

It’s their firm holiday party, the one everyone’s invited to, the one Suho will certainly be at and so, you need to be churning out your best performance. While the costume contest hadn’t indicated that it was for couples, it would make sense that the two of you show up in identical sweaters. 

Johnny tosses him the flask and adds, “Besides, the competition is only the first hour, then we can take them off.” 

You need your friends to get drunker faster because Sehun is already nervously looking around by the time you enter the swanky ballroom. The place is decked out in a beautiful assortment of white-blue fake snow and thousands of sparkly lights, and if you close your eyes just the right amount, you could be back in Evanston, looking out over the lake. 

Johnny and Sehun leave you to your own devices, hoping to divide and conquer the two open bars, and you see Jennie to your right, looking as woefully out of place as you are. If anyone asks why you do what you do next, you’ll claim the spirit of the holidays. 

“Do you want a sweater for the competition?” You say just quietly enough for her to hear, but not loud enough to draw any more attention. “I’ve got another, if you want”

She glances up from her phone in surprise, but composes herself into her usual look of haughty derision as she eyes the corner of fabric you’ve pulled out from your bag. 

“What? No. I got this Balenciaga dress from work just for tonight. I don’t want to cover it up.”

“Right,” you nod your head curtly, your attempt at friendship making you feel so stupid. “Sorry.”

You think the conversation’s going to die then and there but maybe she’s just as uncomfortable as you are when she asks, “Anyways, how do you know these people again?”

“Ah, Sehun is my roommate. Johnny and I went to Northwestern together,” you point them out and Jennie does seem to have some sort of basic understanding of your social circle.

“With J, right?”

“Yeah,” you affirm lamely, her casual familiarity with Jaehyun pricking at you in an unneeded way. “Um, how do you know… J?”

“Our dads were in the same class at Princeton. I met him when he moved to Manhattan,” she recites their story easily, like she’s no doubt shared with dozens of her girlfriends, and you wish you had her confidence. Especially when she nonchalantly drops, “We’re probably going to get engaged soon.”

You choke on the cookie you’d just taken a bite out of, accidentally spraying crumbs everywhere, “Excuse me?”

Jennie doesn’t notice how you’re rapidly unraveling, how your physical discomfort at choking is trying its damndest to mask the emotional discomfort that is swollen into your chest. She only checks her makeup in her phone reflection and continues on,

“Yeah, J’s father’s been wanting him to get engaged for a while now. If my father’s lawyers can write the prenup that’s acceptable for both families, we’ll probably get engaged.”

“That’s very nice,” you offer, because that is about all you can manage.

And really, it’s not like you’re in any position to have an opinion about this. You’re at the age where everyone’s starting to settle into serious relationships, where engagements and prenups and weddings are starting to become the norm. It’s expected, for someone like Jaehyun to marry someone like Jennie, someone very much not like you. It’s expected.

“What about you?” She questions in return, finally noticing your silence. Then, an imaginary lightbulb goes off over her head, “Wait, you’re not actually roommates with Sehun, are you. You’re dating, right?”

You glance over to the bar in a panic, which is probably the wrong move to make because she clearly notices your matching shirts, looking back and forth between you two several times. 

Out of habit, you move to deny it immediately,

“No—,”

But her attention is snapped up by movement on the opposite end of the crowd, and she scurries away before you can fully answer or explain. “The photobooth opened up, I have to get in line! Bye!”

But before you have a moment to sigh in relief, Jennie is immediately replaced by someone else in your proximity.

“Y/n.”

“Suho, hello,” the senior associate is decked out in a sweater bearing the likeness of his dog, Blue, in a Santa hat. “I like your sweater, the puppy is very cute.”

You haven’t interacted with the man that much, but even you can tell that something’s off, he’s way too stilted and formal when he inclines his head to you, “Thank you.”

You notice that he’s alone, and you take that opportunity to do some digging for your friend, “Is Irene here?”

“Oh, no, she couldn’t make it tonight,” Suho confirms your observation, and you’re not too sure if he looks pleased or upset by that fact. Honestly, he looks confused more than anything. 

“Is there something I can help you with, then? You look confused.”

“Was Jennie right?” He blurts, fingers tightening around the glass of bourbon he’s holding. “Are you and Sehun dating?”

“I, I — what?” You fumble for a response, wondering how you had been caught in the mother of all awkward conversations _twice_ within the first thirty minutes of this party. 

Suho is clearly tipsy and upset by this idea, and that, coupled with the rigorous politeness that you know is a pillar of his existence, stains his cheeks red with exertion and embarrassment, 

“You’re always together and he calls you stuff like princess and sweetheart. I was just wondering, I was just, I was just curious. Sorry.”

“Curious about what?”

Why the fuck is Jaehyun here. Where the fuck are Sehun and Johnny. What the fuck is happening.

“Hey, Jung, do you know?” Suho questions the newcomer to the group, and Jaehyun flinches a little when his coworker’s hand slaps his shoulder a bit too strongly.

“Know what?”

“If Oh and y/n are dating?”

You’re too slow to stop Suho from voicing the query out loud, and Jaehyun splutters in surprise after taking an ill-timed sip of his drink. You think he’s going to laugh off the misstep, to joke with Suho and tell him that you’re Northwestern’s renowned ice queen, but that’s not what happens at all. 

Jaehyun fixes Suho with the fiercest, deepest glare you’ve ever seen on his pretty face, eyebrows slanting in tension, and the words come through his teeth lowly and dripping with derision,

“I don’t know anything about about y/n’s dating life. Why would you want to know about that?”

> [2017 Mar 20, 11:04 am] **jaehyun (baseball):** heard you shot moon down  
> [2017 Mar 20, 11:05 am] **you:** so?  
> [2017 Mar 20, 11:05 am] **jaehyun (baseball)** **:** you don’t want to come to the nct formal?  
> [2017 Mar 20, 11:06 am] **you:** i don’t give a fuck about dating  
> [2017 Mar 20, 11:30 am] **jaehyun (baseball)** **:** right. ill make sure everyone knows

“I…” Suho cowers a little in the face of the younger man’s disdain, clearly caught off guard and automatically apologizes. “Sorry.”

“Jaehyun, it’s okay,” you curl your hand around the material of his Star Wars sweater, and nudge him away from the confrontation as best you can. Defending your honor as he always has.

You somehow feel like you’re at fault for all of this and take your turn to beg pardon, “I’m sorry, Suho, but you’re probably better off asking Sehun.”

When a waiter throws himself into the foray, brandishing a tray of champagne flutes, Jaehyun takes the distraction to grab you by the hand and tuck you away into a deserted corner right outside of the ballroom,

“Come here for a sec.”

Once you’ve unwillingly extracted your hand from his, you situate yourself a safe distance away from him, “Yeah, what’s up?”

He crosses his arms in front of him, leveling you with an indecipherable look, “So, are you?”

_So, are you dating Sehun?_

Jaehyun has never asked about it once, only accepting your stories about your friend at Columbia with muted interest. But the way he’s eyeing you, with the slight part in his lips, the heave of his chest. You just know that he’s dying to know. And after that display he’s just put on, he’s a hypocrite for that. 

“You just spent the past ten minutes sneering at a senior associate in your firm for asking me that same question, you’re really going there?” You’re not really upset that he’s asked, though, you’re just not quite sure how you’re going to answer it. You’ve got to drag this out for as long as possible.

“Yeah, why not?” He shrugs without a care, hand coming to fix an errant strand of hair that’s fallen out of his perfect updo. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“You’re drunk,” you point out, which is true, but you might as well have stayed silent, because it makes no difference. 

“Why are you being so irritating, y/n?” He jeers as he gets close enough to flick the end of your ponytail, fingers toying with the ends of your locks.

“Speak for yourself,” you reply exasperatedly, ducking away from him. “Your entire presence exists to irritate me.”

He pushes his face close into yours with a mocking smile, “Who’s the one mouthing off right now? It’s you, not me.”

You picture what Jennie would do in that instant and you close your eyes haughtily, nose in the air as you shake your head, “If you want answers, you’re not going to get them this way.”

“Fine, okay, I’m sorry,” he says the words but his tone isn’t apologetic; because he’s really not sorry for making fun of you. “Now can you please tell me if you are dating Sehun or not?”

You raise an eyebrow, “Why would I do that though? I don’t get why you care to know?”

“Everyone knows everything about me. You, you know everything about me,” he admits, suddenly anxious, hands fidgeting against the sleeves of his sweater, against the seams of his pockets, against the hair at the back of his neck. “But I feel like even after all this time, I still know nothing about you. And I want to know it all.”

There’s no reason for you to blab your personal business to him anymore, you don’t feel like you can tell him all that you told him in college. Yes, he knows the concrete, obvious details of your life, but they’ve been missing a certain depth, a certain poignancy that you once had. There’s that thin sheet of ice that you haven’t yet melted. He exists in your periphery, nothing more, nothing less.

But you want to, you want to tell Jaehyun everything, to look into his warm brown eyes and spill the deepest depths of who you are, what you’ve concealed away from the world for the past three years, to unfurl your petals in the blossoming rays of his sun. 

You’re safe here, in this little corner of the hotel, you make your home in little corners, and you’re going to tell Jaehyun everything.

A cold tsunami of something wet cascades down your back, and you yelp in shock, “Ah! Fuck!”

Someone you’ve never seen before stumbles away from you, her glass now empty with whatever liquid she’s just accidentally spilled all over you. 

“Sorry, oh my gosh I’m so sorry.”

She tries to wipe it off of you but Jaehyun brusquely brushes her away, positioning her drunk self towards the door and in the opposite direction from you, “Just get the hell out.”

Well, your Christmas sweater is all cold and wet and disgusting now but the competition is probably over already. Hopefully Sehun has pulled out the win for both of you, so no one will mind if you just slip the sweater off…

“Why are you taking that off?” Jaehyun stutters nervously, eyeing you as you expose the thin, crisscrossing straps of the dress you’d worn underneath. 

You flip the garment around so he can see the large stain on the back of the green fabric, “She spilled her beer all over me!”

But his focus isn’t on your ruined sweater, it’s all over the slope of your shoulders, the brush of your hair against your clavicle, the pearl necklace you always wear. How can just a glance from him undo you in this way, how can it rip you sinew from sinew, leaving you unprotected in this way, in a way only he can stitch you back together.

Twenty-one year old you would’ve pressed the sweater back into your torso, would’ve hidden behind whatever feeble protection it could provide, but twenty-five year old you is brazen, bold, a siren in human form, and so, you stand in front of him with no avenue of defense.

“Why does it always have to be red?” Jaehyun whispers, more to himself than to you, and you’re confused. 

“What?”

“That night, you, you were wearing red that night too. Fuck,” he lets out this low, throaty sigh after he curses, running a hand through his hair, messing up the perfect coif. “Why do you still look exactly the same?”

The pattern flashes in your mind, a deep wine red with black polka dots. “That— that night?”

He’s beyond flustered now, his effortful breathing evident, the darker hue of his eyes flashing, the ominous step he takes towards you thundering as he confesses, 

“I’ve thought about that night every day since graduation, you have no fucking idea.”

“Jaehyun, oh my god,” you gasp involuntarily, absolutely astounded by what you’ve just heard. 

You were so, so, so sure he had forgotten it all, that you had just been another wave that the moon of him pulled back and forth. But Jaehyun Jung has thought about that night in the NCT house every day since graduation. Just as you have.

“You’re telling me you haven’t?”

_You have, you have, you have. Say the fucking words!_

“I, I—,”

Sehun explodes into your vision, face ghostly pale, voice queasy as he grasps your arm, “Hey, honey bun, we’ve got to go. Now. I called an Uber.”

He doesn’t need to say the words but you know that it’s an emergency, that there’s something very, very wrong, and that supersedes anything else that could possibly be happening, including this fucking crazy conversation that you’re in the middle of. 

There’s no amount of apologizing you can do to get Jaehyun to understand precisely why you’re leaving him at this moment, but you hope that he knows you’re sincere when you say, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.”

“Here. Merry Christmas,” Jaehyun smiles thinly as he presses a wrapped something into your arms, and you take it before you scurry out of the hotel with Sehun, not affording a second glance back. 

Sehun hurries you down Fifth Ave as you approach the Uber’s rendezvous point, and you’re breathlessly trying to figure out what’s going on whilst simultaneously suppressing the image of Jaehyun looming over you,

“What? What happened?! Are you okay?”

“I just got caught under the mistletoe with Suho,” Sehun murmurs, and your hand comes to hold his in comfort. “I’ll tell you when we get home, there’s too many people here.”

“Oh. Oh my god, okay.”

You cradle Jaehyun’s unopened gift in your lap the whole way home. You keep it with you while Sehun tells you the story of how Suho confronted him like you stupidly suggested, how Sehun had been too scared to admit the truth and told him that yes, you were his girlfriend. How Suho apparently burst into a drunken round of tears after Sehun said so. 

But none of it fully registers, because all you can think about is Jaehyun thinking about you.

There’s absolutely no way he could’ve remembered it, he was drunk tonight like he had been drunk then, there’s no chance. This is some sort of game, this can’t actually be real life. He’s definitely just playing with you, trying to poke and prod at you to garner some sort of reaction for his personal delight. 

But as you unwrap his gift after Sehun’s gone to bed, there’s nothing else to do but pull yourself out of the pool of denial you’ve drowned in.

Because sitting in the middle of your bed, gleaming even in the dull light of your beside lamp, is a shiny blue bottle of Hypnotiq, with a Post-It stuck to the curve of the glass.

_2 out of 5 bet drinks down, 3 to go. Have a pretty Xmas. -J_

-

“Mark’s taking the red-eye to Chicago, so he should be at the airport around when you land. I’ll just hang out and pick up the both of you at once,” you try to steady the phone against your ear as a particularly large group of drunk freshmen blow by you. 

You never walk this part of campus, the tree-covered pathway somewhat unfamiliar to sober you, never-mind currently tipsy you who’s trying to listen to Sehun’s voice through the noise on the other end.

“Are you sure it’s cool I’m using one of your graduation tickets?” You manage to make out his concerned question only barely. 

“I mean, yeah. We all get two invites, and it’s not like I have anyone else to bring,” you don’t have to fill in the blanks out loud, he already knows that your parents won’t need those invites.

“You know I’m sorry about that, angel face.”

You toe at an errant clump of grass in the middle of the street with your sneaker, trying not to let the dormant sadness creep up into your soul.

“Yeah, well this is a weekend for celebration, so no need to dwell on that.”

He’s straining to keep the call together, but the cacophony of sounds coming through the receiver is too much to keep the conversation audible, “What?”

“Sehun,” you’re practically shouting, and the other people on the sidewalk look over in confusion. “I can’t hear you.”

“Sorry, I’m out in Midtown,” he screams back. “I’ll call you when I get home. Love you!”

You find yourself at your destination by the time the call clicks dead, and you let out a low breath as you eye the opulent building that awaits you. You promised Johnny that you’d make it to one NCT party before you graduated, and unfortunately you’d left that task to the very last minute. He’d insisted you’d come tonight, to the very last rager that he and his brothers would get to throw at Northwestern.

There are already dozens of people spilling out of the upper floor’s balcony, the lawn is littered with kegs and cups alike, and you’re about ready to turn right around and leave, apologetic text to Johnny already crafted, when the freshman pledge by the door calls out to you.

“Hey!” You’ve never seen this scrawny little kid before, but somehow he knows you. “You’re Johnny Suh’s roommate, aren’t you?”

You eye your surroundings warily, only giving up your identity when you realize there’s no one around you, “That’s me.”

“He left this for you,” he gestures you closer, and when you’re on the doorstep of the NCT house, hefts a large bottle of blue Hypnotiq into your hands and steps away from blocking the door. “You can go ahead in, if you want.”

“He … what?” 

You’re confused by the kid’s turn of phrase, but he actually physically pushes you through the entryway, sounding more like an experienced upperclassman than you ever will. 

“Have fun!”

You’re immediately blasted by a rush of hot air, immediately out of place amongst the grinding bodies, immediately uncomfortable upon realizing that you’re just a tad bit overdressed. Your fingers grasp for purchase around the top of the bottle, and you wrench it open to glug down a third of the liquor. As you scan the crowd, you don’t see Johnny, or really anyone you know anywhere. 

The house is huge, and filled with an insane amount of people that definitely isn’t legal or safe, but you know that Johnny wouldn’t just leave you hanging like this. He would’ve been waiting for you at the door, or actually would’ve walked over with you. The anxiety starts to prick at your fingers. You can’t call Sehun, between the noise here and the noise in New York, he’d be no help. You’re on your own. What are you missing? 

When someone in a khaki vest wanders by, you vaguely recall Johnny ranting about this camping and canoeing trip his environmental sciences professor was taking his lecture on. But you didn’t think he was serious about going! He had hyped up this party for weeks!

But… he had also left a bottle of Hypnotiq to be delivered to you, when he would’ve otherwise been able to hand it off himself. 

Finding the nearest corner of the room that isn’t filled with sweaty students, you lean against the wall and pull up a text to test your theory.

> [2017 May 21, 10:35 pm] **you:** jonathan i swear to god if im at this nct party and ur god damn camping on the lake

After you press send, you wait, wait, and curse loudly when you see the blue bubble turn green. Fuck. How had you forgotten? How had _Johnny_ forgotten? You quickly switch over to a different text thread.

> [2017 May 21, 10:36 pm] **you:** are you at nct tn  
>  [2017 May 21, 10:36 pm] **you:** what the fuck am i doing here  
>  [2017 May 21, 10:36 pm] **you:** why the fuck is john obsessed with canoeing idgi  
>  [2017 May 21, 10:37 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** hahaha. hes so weird.  
>  [2017 May 21, 10:37 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** im here tho

You sigh in relief. The freshmen pledges switch out every thirty minutes, you know this for sure. You’ll have something to do for the next twenty minutes as you wait out the kid at the front, so you can leave when a different pledge is on door duty. One who won’t tattle on you to Johnny. 

> [2017 May 21, 10:37 pm] **you:** great now i can sit in this corner and text u until its socially acceptable to be seen leaving

“You don’t have to text me. I’m right here.”

You nearly drop your phone, the device wobbling in your hands, as you straighten up your slouched posture when you see who’s in front of you.

“Oh, Jaehyun. Hi.”

It does not help at all that he looks obnoxiously good, in this pastel green NCT shirt that he’s cut into a tank, showing off the expanse of his toned arms, ripped jeans, and white sneakers that sneakily somehow match yours.

It also does not help that he’s smiling at you in that way, black hair falling over his forehead in this alluring waterfall. And you honestly kind of get why your media communications case partner would never shut the fuck up about his dimples.

“Oh, hi, yourself,” he tugs at the end of your braid teasingly, like he’s done it his whole life. Like this isn't the first time you’ve had an actual conversation in person. “I can’t believe the first time I see you at one of these is the last time I’ll see you at one of these.”

You have to repeat in your mind that you’ve never, and you mean never, had a conversation in person with this man. Of course, you’ve spent the entire past semester texting, but when you’d gone over to his apartment with Johnny that one time, all you’d said was _hi._ Nothing more. Yet here you are, talking with Jaehyun Jung like you’re old pals, in this secluded little corner of the NCT house.

“Funny how things work out like that,” you muse softly, wishing that your hands were empty so you could tuck away a lock of hair that’s made its way out of your braid. 

“Funny,” his nose crinkles as his smile widens, and he’s too utterly charming for you. “Did John leave you that Hypnotiq? I thought your drink of choice was vodka.”

“I just think it’s pretty,” you blush as you admit the simple appeal of the flattering color, holding the bottle up to your face so you can stare at the cerulean liquid intently. “Don’t you think so?”

He is decidedly not looking at the alcohol when he replies, “I do.”

“Yoooo, y/n!” Someone slaps your shoulder blade in greeting, and you giggle when you see Taeil’s glazed but pleased expression. “What’s up, I’ve never seen you at one of these!”

“Hey Moon, good to see you!” You accept Taeil’s hug easily. 

After rejecting his date night request, the two of you had struck up the oddest, funniest friendship in your media relations class. His presence is a relief, somehow giving you a lift of desperately needed buoyancy in the sea of Jaehyun you’d just been drowning in. 

“Where’s your boyfriend, though?” Taeil asks innocently, taking a swig out of his beer as he waits expectantly for your answer.

“My, my what?” You’re not entirely sure if you’ve heard him correctly, your hearing has been shot all night, and he can’t honestly think you’re… here with a boyfriend?

“This is a stoplight party,” you suppose the name should be self explanatory, but Taeil gives you the details anyways. “Green means single and ready to mingle. Yellow is a maybe. Red means you’re in a relationship. You’re wearing red.”

You curse Sehun for convincing you over the phone to get out of your comfort zone, to wear this cute little low cut dress, in this deep wine red with the tiniest black velvet polka dots. 

“I didn’t know! I don’t come to these things, you said it yourself!”

“Lay off her, Moon,” Jaehyun warns his friend when he notices how flustered you’re getting. But Taeil is focused on something else.

“Wait, is Joy Park wearing red?”

“She was in green when we walked over! She must’ve changed. Fuck me,” Jaehyun groans, giving an awkward head nod when the girl spots him and waves exuberantly, proudly showing off her red bodycon dress.

“Oh, she definitely wants to, buddy,” Taeil declares mischievously, punching the taller man right in the chest before sauntering away. “Good luck with that.”

“Lovely,” Jaehyun mutters, and then the conversation is plunged into icy silence. 

So, Jaehyun came to the party with Joy as his date. 

Why does that bother you in such a particularly nagging way? You don’t have anything against the hospitality major, in fact, you’re actually pretty sure she was Johnny’s tutor sophomore year and was always incredibly kind to you. But god, it’s so fucking bothersome for some reason you can’t really pinpoint. Why is it irking you so personally and deeply?

Jaehyun hovers beside you as you choose to sip from the Hypnotiq bottle once again, observing the sweaty mass of bodies on the dance floor. You’re about two seconds away from telling him that it’s fine, he doesn’t have to stand here and keep you company, when he breaks the silence himself.

“Hey, by the way, is Mark flying in for graduation? Your friend from Columbia too?” He asks curiously, and you’ve been so busy with packing and finals that you haven’t had time to detail your graduation plans with him. 

You already know what he’s doing. His parents and grandparents had been driven to Evanston earlier tonight for his major graduation tomorrow morning, commencement on Sunday, and then his grad party is in the city on Monday. You’d been given a perfunctorily polite invite, but you’d had to decline because of Sehun’s graduation on Tuesday. Not like you really had a place amongst the elite that make up Jaehyun’s friend group, anyways.

“Yeah, they’re both flying into O’Hare in the morning,” you explain, your impending alarm already ringing in your mind. “I actually should probably get going soon, because I need to get up early and pick them up. What time is it, anyways?”

You absentmindedly click the lock button on your phone, the bright numbers blaring 11:15 pm, and your forgotten notifications flash on the screen for just an instant as the device auto-unlocks.

“Yeah, I think I have to get out of here—,”

Jaehyun snatches the phone out of your hand, carefully scrutinizing something on the display, lips twisting into a pout as he whines, “Wait, wait, wait, why is my name just Jaehyun parentheses baseball in your phone? Hold up.”

His name is Jaehyun (baseball) in your phone because his name is Jaehyun, and he plays baseball? You’re truly too stunned to argue with him right now, and you stand back to let him do whatever he wants in your phone. There’s nothing incriminating in there for him to see anyways, he could scroll through your apps willy nilly and you’d find it hard to care. Besides, you have a pretty glorious view right now, of his brow furrowed in concentration, tongue trapped between his teeth as he types out something once, twice, and a third time.

He brandishes your phone a second later, proud smile broad across his face, “Here.”

You narrow your eyes at the glare of the screen, but finally register what exactly you’re looking at. It’s your phone book, open to a contact with a number you recognize to be Jaehyun’s. But instead of the contact having Jaehyun (baseball) written across the top of the screen, there’s something else instead. 

“What the fuck is _my MVP_ supposed to mean?” When you blurt it out, you don’t mean to be so harsh, truly, but what the fuck is that even about? The person you think of when you hear the phrase ‘your MVP’ played shortstop for the Yankees for 20 years.

All of a sudden, the smile is gone, and Jaehyun is staring at you in an oh so very serious way, making you feel oh so very nervous.

“Let’s talk for a second, can we?”

“Jaehyun, what?” You can barely hear him above the pulsing bass of the music and the off-key singing emanating from the people around you. “Here?”

He shakes his head as he takes the blue bottle out of your grasp, leaving your fingers free so he can take them in his, so he can hold your hand to lead you away from the crowd. And it takes you a second to register, holy shit, you’re holding hands with Jaehyun.

Together, you make your way into a side room that’s a bit quieter — despite the fact that there’s still a ton of people within — and you spy a very inviting, luxurious black velvet couch hidden to the side.

He drops onto the black seat lazily, patting the cushion beside him. You move to sit there, in an area where you can afford yourself enough personal space to not be overwhelmed. Instead, he pulls you down so you’re sitting on his lap, legs draped over his, his hand tender on your thigh.

Your heart works into overdrive, flagellating itself into a rhythm you can’t keep up with, a tune so sick and loaded with feeling that you don’t know what to do with yourself.

“You must know that I won team MVP this year,” he starts, murmuring so lowly each individual syllable dances a lovely waltz down the length of your spine.

And of course you know that, you’d seen the pictures of his trophy all over Instagram after the Big Ten tournament wrapped up, and oh, he’s tucking that errant strand of hair away from your face and softly weaving it back into your braid.

The soft down of his bangs brushes against the skin of your arm as he turns his head and leans into you, bashful when he proclaims,

“And well, I’m, I’m yours.”

Your tongue is heavy in your mouth with disbelief as you answer, “You’re mine?”

You’ve never been in love, but you’re sure this is the closest you’re ever going to get.

“I’m yours,” he swears himself to you, like he’s never been surer of anything in his life. “If you want me.”

If you’re being truly honest with yourself, you’ve already been his for a while.

You reach out to cradle his face in your hands, the smooth, blushing apples of his cheeks squish under your thumbs as you trace the outlines of the thin, twin crescents by his mouth. His sparkling eyes marvel at you above him, and you’ve just about had enough of it all.

It’s a breathless moment when you kiss him, just a hasty press of your lips to his, with your eyes screwed shut in agitation. You don’t even want to open your eyes after, so sure that this is somehow something else you’ve royally messed up.

But then you hear it, his breathy disbelief, and you open your eyes to the vision that is Jaehyun, lips parted as he struggles to compose himself,

“Y-you kissed me.”

You try to think of something to say back, anything, you’re completely and utterly tongue tied, but Jaehyun wraps it all up for you in the perfect little bow,

“I might honestly be yours forever.”

You are so shy then, so, so, so, so shy, so shy and smiley that the nervous giggle spills from your mouth across his when he reaches up to kiss you once more.

You’ve never felt so unhurried in your life the way you do sitting there, as you kiss Jaehyun once, pliant, soft, twice, three times, more times than you count or can even bother to keep track of. This is no sloppy frat house makeout, his hand is so gentle on the slope of your back, and his tongue takes its sweet time to carefully push into your mouth, and even though his hand is firmly under the hem of your skirt on your leg, it’s all done with such delicate nuances of affection. Every so often his eyes will flutter open to look at you, like he can’t quite believe this is actually happening.

You’re wrapped up in each other so closely you don’t know where the arc of him curves onto the tangent of you. You never want to be parted from him again, honestly what were you doing this whole semester keeping him at an arm’s length, when you could’ve been letting him hold you like this, kiss you like this. Your mouth opens over his, head tilting fully so you can imbue the gesture with the true depth of devotion that’s frothing within you, and the strength of his hand moving from your back to your waist is the steadying beacon of it all.

“Would you, uh, would you want to come back to my house with me?” He asks tentatively as you brush a kiss over his cheek, and the slant of his jaw.

You freeze in spite of yourself, your hands on his chest, cold dread overrunning the devotion in an instant. It’s not like you haven’t hooked up with people before, you definitely have. You’ve just never done _this_ before, been with someone you truly, genuinely like. And you don’t want to ruin it with him, because you really can’t afford to.

You end up blurting, “It’ll probably be really bad,” all the same.

He plays idly with your braid, smoothing the end here and there, curling it around his fingers nimbly as he questions you in a quiet voice, “Do you think that matters to me?”

In any other world you would’ve said yes, because who are you kidding? This is Jaehyun Jung, fraternity president, all-American athlete, and ladies’ man galore. He wouldn’t have afforded you a second glance, let alone asked you to come back to his apartment with him if you hadn’t been the top tier of top tiers. But this isn’t that same Jaehyun. This is the sweet boy that keeps you company when you’re up late studying, that asks about Mark and your best friend in New York, that saves you pieces of peach pie and has apparently liked you this whole time.

You kiss him again, just because you can, then you answer,

“No.”

The happiest man on Earth couldn’t hold a candle to Jaehyun in that moment, couldn’t compare to the way his lips curl up in a roguish smile as he helps you up off the couch, tucking your hand firmly in his.

“Come on, then. I’ll call an Uber so we don’t have to walk.”

As you make your way out of the party, no one glances at you strangely, like its somehow not weird for you to be leaving an NCT party hand in hand with Jaehyun. There are no lascivious cheers, like you’re some trophy he’s won or some mountain he’s conquered, not even Taeil makes a snarky comment when he notices your obviously interlocked hands. He kind of just nods at you both, like he’d been expecting it.

Jaehyun kisses you as soon as you come to a stop on the corner of sidewalk in front of the house, like that five minute walk when he hadn’t been able to kiss you was far too long for him. And it’s really just _too_ perfect, his hand on yours, the moonlight streaming through the trees, the way you can’t help but sigh when he moves his head to more thoroughly brush your mouth with his.

And then he feels confident enough to boldly whisper into your ear, “When we get to my place, I don’t want you to take that dress off right away.”

You go cherry, cherry red at his lascivious words, unbelievably bashful despite everything you’ve just done, “What? Why not?”

“Because you look so cute in it,” he presses his lips into the apex of where your jaw meets your neck. “And I want to remember you like this.”

He could ask you to put on a banana suit upon entering his apartment, and you’d do it with no hesitation.

“Mmm, okay. Whatever you want.”

You stretch up onto your tiptoes to try and kiss him once more, but are interrupted by your phone vibrating wildly, palpable even through the leather of your purse. Of course this fucking cliche would happen to you, but you’re too paranoid to not at least check the call. He doesn’t seem to mind and steps back to give you room to retrieve the device — the number on the screen is one you don’t recognize.

You’re about to silence the call when the first three digits, 650, catch your eye.

“Wait, wait, sorry, I’m going to answer. This is Stanford’s area code,” you quickly apologize to Jaehyun before you answer the call. “Hello?”

It’s a woman’s voice on the other end, one you don’t recognize either, “Hello, is this Ms. y/f/n y/l/n?”

“Yes, this is she,” you confirm in confusion. “May I ask who this is?”

“My name is Abigail Weatherford, I work here at Stanford Hospital here in Palo Alto. I’m calling you because a Mr. Mark Lee is here in our emergency room, and you’re listed as his emergency contact.”

Your hand involuntarily comes up to clutch at Jaehyun’s arm, your nails digging into his skin tightly as you start to feel the panic brew, “Excuse me, but what?”

She repeats herself again, “Mr. Mark Lee is here at the hospital with us, and you’re his emergency contact. I am calling to let you know.”

“What?”The panic explodes into full blown hysteria at the mention of Mark, you’re certain that if you hadn’t been holding on to Jaehyun that you would’ve collapsed right onto the concrete. “What happened?!”

“I’m not allowed to give you the details over the phone—,” she starts in the neutral tone she’s no doubt been trained to deliver news in.

But that is no match for the ferocity of your shout, “Not allowed to tell me over the phone?! I’m his sister!”

“Policy dictates we don’t provide patient details until the emergency contact is present at our facility,” she drones on, reciting the words with little to no care for your personal feelings.

“I don’t give a shit what your policy is,” you spit, knowing that the profanity probably won’t help you but unable to stop it anyway. “I’m a student at Northwestern, I don’t live in California!”

“Ms. Y/l/n….” she starts, prepared to turn you down again, but your voice cracks as you start to beg.

“Please. Please, please tell me if my brother’s okay.”

There’s a pause, one where you feel like your lungs might detonate around your heart, and then she relents, “Mr. Lee was brought to our emergency room after being involved in a multi-car collision. He’s stable, but will need to go into surgery to stop his internal bleeding in the next half an hour—,”

She’s not even done before you’re biting out a sharp, “I’m on my way,” and hang up.

“Y/n?”

You ignore Jaehyun in favor of pulling up your flight tracker, the flights from Chicago to Oakland bookmarked with taunting little hearts. You’d checked your bank account this morning after the last of your student expenses for the semester had gone through, the shiny $520.34 the target you need the next flight will be.

Said flight, one leaving Midway at 6:30am, is $740.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you swear rapidly, eyes blurring as you switch back over to the phone to hit the second number on your speed dial.

“You gotta talk to me,” Jaehyun entreats when you start to pace back and forth on the sidewalk as the phone rings. “You’re really freaking me out.”

“Mark was in a car accident,” you divulge in a hurry, words blending together so fast you’re not even sure you’re actually telling him what he needs to know. “I need to go to California, but I can’t afford the next ticket and Johnny’s out of cell range, so I can’t ask him for money. I’m calling Sehun to see if he can Venmo me enough to cover the price. I’ll just be a second.”

This isn’t something he should be bothered with, these are the plights of your life that you have to take control of, you don’t want this night to be ruined because of it. But you’re resigned to the fact that Jaehyun will probably abandon you here, too freaked out to do anything else.

His fingers gently close around your wrist, lowering the phone from your ear despite it still ringing, and you jerk your head to him in confusion,

“What are you doing?”

“My dad has a jet at a private airport by O’Hare,” he offers it up so easily, like he’s proposing to carry your books to the library or giving you a sweatshirt to borrow. “You take it.”

“Jaehyun, I…,” of course you feel obligated to protest, this isn’t some favor you can just accept with the wave of your hand.

“It’s mine to use as I please, and it would really please me to see you get to Mark in some sort of swift manner,” his fingers lift your chin so he can kiss you on the cheek, and you don’t even realize you’ve actually been crying until the pad of his thumb catches the crystal droplets tumbling down the swollen skin under your eyes.

The Uber rolls to a stop in front of the pair of you and Jaehyun knocks on the window to talk to the driver, “Can you please switch the destination to O’Hare Executive Airspace? I’ll pay you in cash if you need.”

You pull him away from the door of the car, shaking your head, “Wait, you can’t come with me. I’ll pay you back for the ride.”

“You know you don’t have to pay me back for the ride. But why can’t I come with you?”

“Your graduation is in the morning!” You point out. 

But he clearly doesn’t care, and easily retorts back, “The airport is only half an hour away, I’ll make it back in time!”

You block him from actually opening the door, like really block him with your entire body and outstretched arms, and he finally gets that you’re completely serious, stepping back onto the sidewalk when you counter with,

“This is my problem, not yours. You don’t have to worry about it.”

He’s not in a position in your life _to_ be worried about it, he’s not your best friend or boyfriend, or anything of the sort. However, he’s clearly upset by this, mouth in a tight line as you open the door to climb in. But you don’t want your last memory of him to be of this, of you angrily pushing him away as you run away yet again. 

You politely ask the driver one more time, “Actually, can you hold on for just a second?”

He shrugs, but you miss it as you turn to run at Jaehyun, jumping into his arms for a hug, his hands grasping at you so tightly, as if you’d be lost forever if he dared to let you go, offering you the first minutia of comfort you’ve felt since hearing the news about Mark. 

“Thank you,” you murmur through your tears as you kiss him once, feather-light, on the cheek. And then once on his mouth because you know it’s the last time you’ll be able to do so. “For everything.”

As it turns out, you get to have the perfect last memory of Jaehyun. Of him there on the street corner, silhouetted perfectly by that same cascade of moonlight, his beautiful dark hair blowing in the cool night wind, tucking away the knowledge that for at least one night, his heart had been yours.

> [2017 May 22, 12:30 am] **my mvp:** let me know when you land  
> [2017 May 22, 5:40 am] **you:** landed. thanks again

**tbc!**


	2. lil slice of sweetness

On a blustery January night, after you’ve wrapped up a late night in the office, your phone goes off with a call from Johnny before you can get in the subway.

“Hey, are you still downtown?”

You step back from the train car so you can continue the conversation, “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Can you do me a huge favor and pick up my iPad from Doyoung’s place? I need the case files that are on there but I already went uptown for the night.”

You’re by Times Square, probably the most convenient location to get to Doyoung’s place quickly, so you don’t mind doing your friend this favor.

“Yeah, just send me his address and I’ll stop there and at your place on my way home.”

Luckily, he lives in some luxury high-rise only a few blocks away, and you have no problem getting the doorman to let you in. Of course this bougie little man would live on the top floor of this building, and of course the hallway is lined with gold-plated mirrors. You don’t need yet another reminder of your haggard after-work appearance. 

Here it is, 25L, and you press the doorbell instead of knocking, because that’s probably the high class thing to do. 

The door is not opened by your dark-haired friend, instead by this glamorous older woman. She’s dressed to the nines, Gucci dress and expensive diamonds, and you feel like you’ve seen her before. But you’ve haven’t met Doyoung’s mother, so who is she?

“Oh? Hello!” She greets you enthusiastically anyways.

“Hi?” You try to peek around her to see if there’s anyone else inside, but you just see another long, fancy hallway. “Is Doyoung here?”

“Who?” 

This is most definitely not Doyoung’s mom, then, but you can’t remember Johnny ever telling you who his roommate is.

“Mom, it’s fine, let me,” a younger, masculine voice creeps up from behind her. “Y/n?”

“Jaehyun?”

It’s not your eyes playing tricks on you, Jaehyun is definitely Doyoung’s mystery roommate, and is definitely there standing in front of you in this luxurious purple button down, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and freshly dyed black hair. 

Why had he chosen black? The last time he had black hair was unforgettable.

Jaehyun had gone on vacation with his family over the holidays and you never mentioned the incident at the Christmas party again or had seen him since. You expected things to be awkward the next time you ran into him, but since he’s acting like nothing’s wrong, usual friendly smile on his face, so will you. Acting like nothing’s happened is his M.O., though.

“Is Doyoung here? Johnny wanted me to pick up his iPad,” this is nothing but a business trip, you’ll get in, get out, and be back in the comfort of the Upper East Side in no time.

Jaehyun checks his watch, and then his phone in rapid succession, telling you, “He’s not back from work yet but should be home in like fifteen minutes or so?”

“Okay, just text me when he’s back and I’ll come pick it up.” 

You have no problem sitting on the fancy couch downstairs until Doyoung comes strolling in the doors, there’s no way you can stay here.

“What, you’re going to leave?” The woman you’ve now recognized as Jaehyun’s mother asks you.

“Yes, ma’am,” you incline your head politely at her. “I’ll wait in the lobby or in the Duane Reade across the street, it’s no big deal.”

“Nonsense, we’re just about to finish up, you can come in and wait here.”

You absolutely cannot come in, you cannot have dinner or drinks or whatever with Jaehyun and his _mother._ It’s true that you remember her, from her usual spot behind home plate at all of Jaehyun’s games, but you’ve never actually met the lady before now. You can’t expect any of this to be a remotely normal interaction.

“Mom…” Jaehyun mutters under his breath, not wanting this encounter to happen any more than you.

“We have so much cheesecake left, Jeffrey, it’s fine!” She waves him away with authority, using his given name, and you feel forced to accept her invitation because she’s exerted said effort.

Neatly lining up your work heels next to Doyoung’s bunny slides at the door, you lamely follow Jaehyun’s turned back to make your way into the opulent apartment. You’re seriously contemplating running out of the house, the few seconds you lag behind enough to give you a head start, but then you’re in the middle of the dining room and really, how could this get worse.

Jennie is at the end of the mahogany dining table, immaculate as always in this beautiful pink dress, fork hefted so tightly in her fist as she tries not to curl her lip in disgust upon seeing you. But that’s not the pressing issue, because at the other end of the table is Senator Jung, with his eyebrows raised in surprise, though not necessarily also in disdain. 

You’ve just walked into a family dinner with Jaehyun, his parents, and his probable fiancée. 

“Hello. I’m y/n,” you greet as you shake his hand, keeping things short instead of what you really want to say, something like, _I borrowed your private jet once and the whole thing ended up destroying my life, so thank you for that, I guess._

You notice that Mrs. Jung is trying to slide a chair over from the kitchen for you and you shake your head before she can go any further, “I’m just here to pick something up. Please continue, don’t let me disturb your meal. I’ll be in the living room. ”

“Take a slice of cheesecake, here.”

She presses a plate into your hand before you can protest, and you smile dumbly in response, turning on your socked heel to retreat into the separate, and blessedly empty room.

“Wait,” Senator Jung calls, and you freeze, back still turned. “You used to work the student section at Northwestern home games, right?”

Yes, you used to volunteer at games, collecting tickets and handing out programs, but you had been one of hundreds of employees and thousands of spectators. You turn your head a fraction to your right, enough for you to lock eyes with Jaehyun, who nods imperceptibly. 

“Yes, sir,” you affirm, shifting the plate to your other hand so you can show him a picture of you and Johnny together. “I’ve been family friends with John Suh for years.”

“Do you live here in New York?” Mrs. Jung asks, and her husband nods, as if he’s interested too.

“Oh, my life is really not that important,” you start to trail off, not wanting this conversation to get out of hand, but then Jaehyun shoots this look like you should continue, and you clear your throat. “Ah, yes. I moved here almost two years ago. I do work for a tech startup, that helps teach coding to kids in underprivileged communities in the city.”

“What do you do again, dear?” The senator directs this question to Jennie, who visibly bristles at being caught off guard.

“I’m currently an intern designer at Balenciaga,” she mumbles to her plate of cheesecake, confidence completely dissipated at the stern line of questioning. 

“Hmm.”

You don’t know why you’re overcome by this tsunami of sympathy, but you know that it can’t be easy for Jennie, trying to shine amongst all the glittering stars of the Manhattan elite; it makes you think of the row of gilded mirrors you passed on the way here. 

“That’s awesome, though,” the words leave your mouth before you can stop them, and everyone in the room turns to look at you. Fuck. “Jennie is like, the most fashionable person I know.”

The girl is frozen in place, unsure of what to do, and you tilt your head as if to encourage her, _go on._

“Right,” the self-assured smile is back, and her conversation starts to flow easily. “I hope to have some of my pieces in this year’s fashion week…”

Once the spotlight is back on the woman who it was built for, you slink away to the living room. 

Collapsing on a nondescript loveseat, you begin to shovel the cheesecake into your mouth at a grueling pace, not really tasting the confection but unwilling to leave an untouched piece on your plate. It’s not until Doyoung texts you to let you know that he’ll be severely delayed because of some train issues that you actually allow yourself to lean up against the back of the chair.

Taeyong used to call Senator Jung the _five hundred million dollar man_ , and the weight of his gaze on you certainly makes you understand why. He has created impossibly big shoes to fill, and it’s no wonder both Jaehyun and Jennie seemed to be incredibly on edge in the five minutes you were there.

They’re probably here for one final check in before whatever engagement that Jennie’s expecting comes to fruition. A chance to see their son and his potential bride together, to size her up and tick off checkmarks on their list. It doesn’t matter that her father and the senator have apparently been friends for so long. If they’re going to select a bride for their precious son, they have to make sure she lives up to certain standards. 

And if Jennie didn’t, well, who would?

You angrily spear the strawberry on top of the slice and shove it into your mouth.

“I know why I recognized you, you were probably the only person at those games who didn’t wear Wildcats gear,” the sound of Jaehyun’s father’s voice startles you out of your angry internal monologue, and you look over to see him and Mrs. Jung putting on their coats. He gestures to your head, “You always had some other hat on.”

It’s your turn to be stuck in your seat, fork stuck halfway up to your mouth, then you realize that he’s just trying to talk baseball with you. 

“Guilty. Though he raised me and my brother in Illinois, my dad was from New York, so I’m a born and bred Yankees fan,” you gulp a little, trying to get the next words out without letting your voice crack. “My brother also played baseball, for Stanford. Baseball family, I guess.”

> [2016 Dec 18, 12:30 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** wait, do you even like baseball?  
> [2016 Dec 18, 1:05 pm] **you:** my dad had season tickets to the yankees in his 20s  
> [2016 Dec 18, 1:05 pm] **you:** and my baby brother mark (technically half but idc) is a sophomore shortstop at stanford  
> [2016 Dec 18, 1:05 pm] **you:** i probably like baseball more than you, idiot, why are you texting me  
> [2016 Dec 18, 1:06 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** hahaha i was wrong. my bad

“I played and so did Jeff,” he announces proudly, slapping Jaehyun on the back. “And we’re a White Sox family, but I guess I can accept you’re a Yankees fan. At least you’re not a Cubs fan.”

You’d been privy to the crosstown rivalry, and chuckle, thinking of how your friend would be appalled at those words, “I will make sure to not tell Johnny that.”

“Look at the time, dear. We really need to go if we’re going to make drinks with the Illinois-New York congressional delegations,” Mrs. Jung reminds her husband, cluing you into the real reason why they’re visiting Manhattan. 

“Jennie,” she turns to the other girl, who’s hovering by Jaehyun. “Let our driver take you home and let your father know we’re still on for dinner tomorrow.”

Jennie obediently puts on her coat, probably too scared to try and stay over, and she makes her way out of the apartment with a feeble wave to you. 

“So nice to meet you, y/n,” Mrs. Jung air kisses the side of your cheek happily, like she’s just gained a life long friend in you, and you awkwardly tap her arm in return. 

Senator Jung shakes your hand strongly, one that you meet with just as much vigor, and he seems pleased enough with it, “Let me know if you ever want to catch a Sox game while you’re at home. Maybe we can convert you.”

The second the door closes, there’s a bottle of port hovering in your vision. 

“Here, have this,” Jaehyun mumbles, and when you don’t take it from him immediately, he shoves it into your hands. “No, seriously. I still owe you, plus you put up with my parents.”

You trail behind him into the kitchen, pull out two glasses from the dish rack, and pour two extremely full cups of the wine.

“I mean, I obviously have no place to comment, but your parents seem nice.”

“Yeah, because they’re on their best behavior whenever we have guests,” Jaehyun takes a glass from you and downs half of it in one go, the nerves becoming evident. “I truly don’t mean this in an offensive way, but you’re lucky you never had anyone to really micromanage your adult life and who you are as a person.”

He’s completely right, of course, before your father’s heart attack, he’d been nothing but laid back and loving. If you or Mark told him you wanted to drop out of school and become a circus clown, your dad would’ve put on a red nose himself and asked when the tent was going up. 

“Don’t you think they mean well, though?” 

You’d never presume to assume anything about his relationship with his parents, but they’d always been there for him and they’d been so nice tonight; it’s hard to wrap your mind around the two versions of the Jungs.

“I mean, they’ve never treated me badly, and have always supported me. But it’s all about legacy,” he slumps into a chair at the dining table, and you sit next to him. “Look at my father: all-American baseball player, summa cum laude Princeton Law, lawyer, senator, millionaire.”

“I mean, all-American baseball player, summa cum laude Harvard Law, which is a one-up, by the way, lawyer,” you tick off each one of Jaehyun’s identical accomplishments on your fingers. “You still have time to become a millionaire senator.”

He laughs a little at your attempt to lighten the mood, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he mulls what he’s going to say next, 

“I know, I know. I should be very grateful and law school _was_ the pragmatic choice to make in that situation, but. I don’t know. It’s every kid’s dream to make it to the big leagues.”

And there’s Mark’s smiling face on your FaceTime call, screaming happily that he was going to join the Dodgers when the semester was over.  It was his dream too.

“Yeah, I know.”

Jaehyun takes another large drink out of his glass, clear now that you’ve touched upon a sore subject, “And when I didn’t, I mean, it just felt like my life was over.” 

“Harvard Law School is a far cry from a life ruiner, don’t you think?” You choose to go back to the teasing route, but that’s probably not what you should’ve done. 

“I mean, not making the big leagues felt like I failed,” his fingers trace the rim of his cup, eyes stormy as he admits the emotional truth in a shaky voice. “And I just. I had a hard time dealing with that. Spent a lot of time in Cambridge very drunk and very alone.”

And there you are in your tiny apartment in the West Loop, crying into yet another bottle of wine after yet another FaceTime call you can’t go through with.

“Same.”

“What?”

Shit, you said that out loud. 

But more importantly, Jaehyun had suffered that way after college? He’d been alone in his apartment in Boston just like you had been in Chicago? Alone and vulnerable and desperate for things to be right again? That doesn’t line up with the neat outline he fits into. But that somehow makes him more real, more like twenty-one year old him.

“Never mind,” you shake your head, and it’s suddenly your mission to get him to cheer up. “Shouldn’t they be happy with the way you turned out, though? It’s not like you’re some sort of deadbeat.”

“I mean yeah, they should. But I’m not sure if they ever will be?” He laments, and crap, that look on his face means you’re definitely getting deep into the existential crisis portion of the night. You’re not entirely sure you have the kind of relationship with him that’ll allow you to get through this. 

“What? I mean, it’s harder to be more perfect than you are.”

The port is drained and it’s just now that you notice how deep the dark circles are under his eyes, just how uncomfortably pale he is.

“Well, you missed the twenty minute lecture at the beginning of dinner about how I should be looking into switching to a more established law firm like Y&G. And you definitely saw the way they grilled Jennie. Pops and her father have been tight for years but I still don’t know if she’ll be enough.”

You think back to your sarcastic, unspoken, original greeting to the Senator and bitterly laugh to yourself. 

You wonder if Jaehyun’s father knows that you’ve used his jet, knows that his only son offered it up to you without a care so you could deal with a personal problem that he shouldn’t have been bothered with. That the only reason you used it was because you were too poor to afford the next flight. That you were on scholarship at Northwestern, that you were solidly middle class, that you used to live in a little brick house at the end of a cul-de-sac. If Jennie wasn’t enough, you definitely wouldn’t be.

Not that you would ever, ever be considered an actual option in Jaehyun’s real life. You were just a night, a night tucked away into a little, dark corner and that was it. You haven’t expected anything more.

“Right,” the word comes out in a more constrained manner than you intend, but it’s hard for you to do it any other way, it actually sort of hurts you to get all of it out. “Because he’s been wanting you to get engaged for some time.”

“y/n…” Jaehyun whispers, stare haunting, and this is the first time in your friendship you’ve ever broached the subject of his relationship status. And you don’t want to hear another word.

“Hey guys, sorry about that,” Doyoung, your lord and savior, chooses that exact moment to walk in the front door. “Thanks for waiting, y/n, the trains were a fucking mess.” 

He fiddles through his briefcase and pulls out the iPad, and Jaehyun is still staring at you, even when you stand up to grab the device from his roommate. 

“Do you want to stay and have another drink?” Doyoung offers after he eyes the open bottle of port on the table. “I might have something better, it’s on me.”

“No, I think I should be heading home,” you answer softly, like all the energy has suddenly been sapped out of your body, and you know exactly where it’s been funneled to, what corner of the room is positively crackling. “Johnny needs the files on this, so.”

On your way out, you see the fancy couch in the lobby and you should’ve waited there. Really, you should have. 

—

“Hey, how about I knock off that fourth drink I owe you by buying you the finest beer in the Bronx?”

It’s March, and Jaehyun is here at Yankee Stadium in blue Jordans, an Aaron Judge jersey that matches yours, and an exhilarated smile that decidedly doesn’t match your scowl.

“You’re here,” you mutter as you adjust your cap to block both the shining sun and his stunning face. 

“Why do you sound so disappointed? It’s not the Sox, I’ll admit, but baseball is baseball,” he flicks the brim of your cap as he teases you, and his fingers move to tug at your braid, but he stops himself before he can indulge in the familiar gesture. 

“I’m not disappointed _(you are, a little),_ but I can’t drink.”

This isn’t some sort of casual gathering, this is an official work outing for you, made obvious by the litter of ten year olds that are gawking up at the stadium from beside you. You’d managed to get Johnny to coax a set out of tickets out of one of the partners at the firm, so you could take a group of the kids your startup worked with to their first baseball game. Of course, Johnny and his friends took that as an opportunity to get out of work early and drink beer, and you shouldn’t be surprised that Jaehyun has shown up. 

And, honestly, it’s getting harder for you to pretend that everything is same old same old between the two of you. You were fine doing it in college, because you were behind a screen, but even the stoic you is reaching your limit. 

“Okay,” he shrugs without a care, like a kid in a candy store. “I’ll buy two beers for myself and you just sip one when no one’s looking.”

“Jelly bean!” The saccharine exclamation can only come from one person, and surely enough, Sehun strikes a pose in his dark blue Giancarlo Stanton shirt, one you know that is borrowed. “Like my jersey?”

“You hate baseball,” you deadpan as Jaehyun politely and awkwardly takes a step away from you so that Sehun can assume his place beside you. He doesn’t need to say anything else, because you see Suho beyond the way, doing his best to pretend he’s not looking over at the two of you. You honestly don’t know what’s going on with the two of them now, but if Sehun needs you, he needs you.

“He’s right over there,” Sehun points out without moving his lips from their practiced smile, low enough that Jaehyun can’t hear.

“I see him, what do you want me to d—,” you start to ask, before you’re interrupted by someone addressing you.

“Y/n?”

A misspelled jersey across the street makes you and Sehun chuckle, and the two of you are giggling as you turn your head carelessly to see who’s trying to talk to you. The laughter dies in the back of your throat when you see Johnny there in a Cubs hat, and beside him,

“Mark?”

His hair is brown — the last time you’d seen him it’d been pink and permed on a dare — and he’s not quite as miniature beside Johnny now as he had been before leaving for sophomore year. His requisite mischievous smile is missing, though he doesn’t look completely unhappy to see you. He’s in a Dodgers jersey, hands shoved into the pockets of his athletic shorts. You look down to his feet, to see if you can see any of it, but his socks are long enough that you can’t. 

“Oh hey, Sehun! What’s up bro!” The limp is almost completely gone as he walks over to slap hands with Sehun, the two of them laughing happily as they embrace.

The entire group, your coworkers, the lawyers, even the kids that you brought along, are watching this reunion with extreme interest, and you feel obligated to explain, especially when he doesn’t hug you. 

“Everyone, um, this is Mark. My,” you pause in the middle of his introduction, recalling exactly what he yelled at you in the hospital, and you finish softly. “Half-brother.”

It’s clear then that even if his foot is healed, those wounds are not, because Mark’s jaw clench could be seen across the Brooklyn Bridge. He immediately turns and puts his arm around Johnny, the two of them leading the group inside the bowels of the stadium, and you usher the kids through security to follow them. 

Once you’re walking along at a reasonable pace to make your seats before the start of the game, you pull Sehun to the back of the group with you.

“Sehun,” you tug at his jersey desperately, hoping to make some sense of what’s going on. “What, what is he doing here?”

“Johnny invited him,” Sehun whispers so that no one can eavesdrop. “Listen.”

Even though they’re several feet in front of where you’re walking, you can hear Johnny’s belligerent voice loudly proclaiming, “It’s opening day, Dodgers vs. Yankees, how could you not finally come visit my Manhattan crib?”

You really want to fucking cry, because this angle allows you to see exactly what jersey Mark’s wearing, the first ever Dodgers jersey he owned, a Clayton Kershaw one that you bought him for his thirteenth birthday. You know it’s the one you bought him, because you can still see the mustard stain above the W in Kershaw, from an unfortunate incident with a hot dog vendor. 

“Are you okay, though?” Sehun asks concernedly after you’ve gotten to your seats, a good five rows behind where Johnny and Mark are already downing beers. “Would you mind if I went to the lounge with some of the others?”

The kids are right in front of you, so you can’t break down, you can’t fall to your knees and beg for forgiveness, you can’t make any sort of scene. All you can do is nod and watch your only line of defense scurry away. 

“Holy shit, holy shit,” you whisper to yourself as soon as Sehun’s gone, taking off your cap for a second to run a shaking hand through your hair. “How did a work outing turn into this?”

“Is it okay if I sit here?” Jaehyun’s got his promised two beers in hand, and you can’t exactly say no because there is an empty seat right behind you. You hope he didn’t hear your just-concluded freak out.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” You answer as he hands a beer to you while you look around. The kids are all enthralled with the first pitch procession, and you take that opportunity to chug the entire thing in one go.

The corner of Jaehyun’s mouth upturns in a curious smile, but he doesn’t ask anything except for, “Where’s Sehun?”

You shrug, gesturing back vaguely to the marquee, “He went to the lounge with some people to get cocktails.”

“So that’s THE Mark, huh?” Jaehyun cuts right to the chase, eagerly asking the question he’s clearly been holding in.

Despite it all, you can’t help the fond smile that spreads across your face.

“Yup, that’s THE Mark.”

> [2016 Dec 21, 6:34 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** you make it home for break?  
> [2016 Dec 21, 6:35 pm] **you:** yeah, well, i made it to johnny’s  
> [2016 Dec 21, 6:35 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** not to your parents’?  
> [2016 Dec 21, 6:35 pm] **you:** uh, no — nvr knew my mom or marks beyond the fact that she was a canadian transplant in cali (y he roots for the dodgers)  
> [2016 Dec 21, 6:36 pm] **you:** dad passed away when i was a freshman, so we stay w john or sehun’s fam for breaks  
> [2016 Dec 21, 6:37 pm] **you:** holy shit, sry didn’t mean to give you my life sob story this fast  
> [2016 Dec 21, 6:37 pm] **jaehyun (baseball):** no, no it’s okay, thanks for feeling comfortable enough to tell me

“I swear, I was obsessed with that kid in college, and I didn’t even know him,” Jaehyun reminisces, and truly, he was Mark’s biggest supporter that semester beyond you and Johnny. “Do I get a personal introduction?”

You rack your brain to think of any time you’d idly mentioned Jaehyun in your numerous calls with your brother before that May night, and you’re fairly sure you never had any reason to bring it up. After all, what sort of college girl tells their little brother about their crush?

“I, I don’t think he knows who you are?” You wonder out loud, combing through conversations and texts, and you’re actually kind of upset that you haven’t. 

“Wait, I’ve known you for years now and you’ve not mentioned me once to your little brother?” Jaehyun looks personally offended, like deeply so, and you can’t really tell him the truth, that there was really no way you _could_ have mentioned him to Mark in any capacity since graduation. You’ll take the fall for that senior spring, but afterwards had been a whole different story.

“I—,”

The cute blonde student right in front of you turns around then, mouth set in a deep frown, and pleads, “Ms. y/n, can I sit up here with you?” 

You discreetly tuck your empty beer cup underneath the seat and lean forward to concernedly check on her, “Are you okay, Hannah?”

“Yeah, I just don’t want to sit with the boys,” she whispers, the two groups of kids on either side of her rowdily cheering on the batters. “They won’t include me.”

You want to scold them, to chastise them for killing any potential for a love of baseball in this little girl, but then Jaehyun, sweet Jaehyun, bends down next to you.

“What’s up Hannah, I’m Jaehyun,” he greets softly, holding out his fist for a fist bump.

“Hi,” she responds, tension melting out of her shoulders, and it’s clear no one across races, ages, or sexes, is immune to his dimpled smile.

“Want me to tell you about what’s going on? I used to play baseball.”

She nods tentatively, and you let her hold your hand so she can climb over the seats and sit next to you. 

He takes off his hat to put over her curls, so she won’t be the only student without one, and he leans in like he’s telling her a secret, “Just so you know, it’s cool for girls to like baseball, okay? Ms. y/n loves it and she’s the coolest girl I know.”

He winks at you and the crowd screams, but it’s just because someone’s just hit a home run.

How lame.

When everyone gets up to sing in the seventh inning, Mark has to turn in his seat to let someone get by. His eyes dart up to your row, and you immediately start to hyperventilate when you see him climb out of his seat to start making his way up the stairs. How are you going to act, what are you going to say, what are you going to do—,

Mark stops right at the end of your row, and his face splits into a grin when he realizes he does recognize your companion, “Wait, you’re Jaehyun Jung, right? Two time all-American right fielder for the Wildcats? You know John?”

“Hey man, yeah,” Jaehyun gets up to shake his hand, the two of them slapping each other in a hug like they’re long-lost bros. "We were teammates at Northwestern. I also know your sister. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Mark ignores the end of Jaehyun’s sentence and steers the conversation back to baseball, “I was so surprised you didn’t go pro, man. You were like, the top of every college list possible.”

“Ah, law school was calling my name,” Jaehyun effortlessly lies, and you can see right through it. “But I mean you more than me? I was super bummed when you decided to retire before you signed.”

Mark’s eyes flick to you so quickly anyone else wouldn’t have noticed, but it’s enough for you to shake your head; a simple, inaudible _he doesn’t know._

“Ah haha,” Mark laughs sheepishly as he brushes the compliment off. “It just wasn’t going to work out.”

You don’t hear that, though, you can only hear nineteen year old Mark screaming again, _It’s her fault._

“What are you doing now? I still miss baseball every day.”

“I’m in sales. I’ll cheers to that, man,” Mark clinks his beer across Jaehyun’s and this is definitely something else you’ve ruined, because in the right world, they should’ve been best friends. 

“How long are you here for? We should get drinks and chat baseball.”

“I’m here for a week,” Mark replies, though it’s spoken just enough to the left of Jaehyun’s face that you know he’s letting you know. Telling you that he’ll be in the city for your birthday. “And we definitely should.”

“Great, I can’t wait.”

Despite Jaehyun’s cheery optimism, you don’t think that Mark is going to make it the rest of the game, let alone the rest of the week.

—

But somehow the rest of the weekend is… pleasant? ****

There’s a brunch the next morning that isn’t half bad, and you even make it through a round of drinks at The Wolf with no incident. Even if he’s not really speaking much to you and you’re doing your best to continue not speaking to him, Mark is downright chummy with your friends, and they invite him to go out with them to their scheduled karaoke night. 

Despite the fact that they all pledged to run a firm 5k at seven the next morning, the already drunk group of hooligans in your living room, your brother included, is currently trying to get Jaehyun to join them.  ****

“Just sleep here at y/n and Sehun’s place with me, we can all take the tram to Roosevelt Island together in the morning. It’s already going to be a slumber party with Mark and Doyoung crashing,” Johnny whines, stamping his feet like he’s five and not almost twenty-six. ****

“D, you’re staying here too?”

Doyoung bobs his head rapidly, the alcohol flush already spreading on his face, “I don’t want to get up at the crack of dawn and go uptown, we can leave later if we stay here.”

Jaehyun finishes off his beer, and puts it down with the three empty bottles that are already in front of him, relenting, “Alright, but I don’t think I’m going to go out. Call me a pussy all you want, but I’m wiped.”

“Pussy!” Sehun jeers, throwing his arm around Mark who lets out a cackle, and you notice that Jaehyun doesn’t exactly laugh along with everyone else.

The boys finish putting on their jackets, and when Mark’s done putting on his boots, he voice is filled with mirth as he turns to Jaehyun,

“Hey Jung, before I go, tell me which one of these fools is the one dating my sister so I can school them on the mic. Rap god Mark Lee is itching to come out.”

The glass in your hand that you’d been washing slips back into the sink with a large crash, but it can’t be heard over the fracas and commotion that Mark’s comment stirs up.

You know exactly the kind of person he is, if Sehun hadn’t made that earlier comment, Jaehyun wouldn’t have retorted in the blistering way he does, “If rumors are to be believed, he’s got his arm around you right now.”

Mark turns his head with a raised eyebrow, locking eyes with your best friend, and then he bursts into another raucous round of laughter, “Wait, you’re talking about Sehun? You can’t be serious.”

But the room is silent, and Mark glances around confusedly when he realizes that everyone is looking at him like he’s crazy. He lets out a signature Mark Lee chuckle, and goes,

“How can you possibly think he’s dating y/n when everyone knows he’s g—,”

“Mark Minhyung Lee!” You snap shrilly, raising your voice and using his full name so that he knows just exactly what you’re calling him out for.

Just because you haven’t spoken to him in three years doesn’t mean that you hadn’t ever told Mark your secrets. Oh, no, it had very much been the opposite. You, Sehun, Johnny, and Mark had all grown up together, and you had told him everything, so he knows. Even if Johnny had somehow been too dense to catch on over the years, Mark _knows._

“Oh. Sorry,” he pats Sehun’s arm knowingly, in a _I won’t give you away_ sort of way, and then flashes you an apologetic smile.

It’s only when Sehun’s shoulders have returned to their normal position from where they’d been hiked up around his ears in anxiety that you realize you’ve been holding your breath, and slump heavily against the kitchen sink in relief.

Johnny starts pushing people out of your apartment, trying to snap the tension with a, “We’ll go now,” and then the door slams behind them.

“Was Mark about to say everyone knows he’s… gay?”

Fuck. You forgot that Jaehyun was still in the apartment.

“I, I don’t know exactly what he is but does it matter to you?” The best word to describe Sehun is fluid, you suppose, but it’s not your business to proclaim his sexuality for him.

“No, no, of course not!” Jaehyun shakes his head, but then changes his mind. “I mean, yeah, it kind of does.”

Your eyes narrow. Have you pegged him for something different all this time? Is he about to show his true colors?

“What.”

“No, not like that!” He holds up his hands, not intending to reveal himself as a bigot. “I just, don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me something like that? Why you let me think you were in a relationship this whole time?”

Okay, okay, hold up. You didn’t let him think you were in a relationship. You and Sehun never kissed or held hands or did anything that _screamed_.. Well, you suppose he wasn’t the first one to think you and Sehun were dating. Jennie thought so first, and Suho had clearly picked up on it too, but Jaehyun shouldn’t have assumed!

You put the dishtowel down, leaning against the counter so you can look him right in the eyes when you say, “I never said anything. And you never asked.”

“I did!” He throws his hands up in exasperation, and then points right at you. “I asked you at the Christmas party!”

Fuck, another moment that had been interrupted by Sehun. So maybe you did owe him an apology? But for what?!

“I never answered!”

Jaehyun gets up in a flash to stand right before you in the kitchen, his figure looming over yours as it had been prone to do. “Okay, so answer now.”

“I am not dating Sehun,” you declare simply and honestly, but you’re just so, so confused. “I honestly don’t get why you’re so mad about it. I’m not mad that you’re dating Jennie.”

“I’m not dating Jennie.”

It’s an echo of the phrase you just uttered, but you can hear how each word is hefted with anguish, how there are spiraling dregs of hurt lodged in between each of the letters. Strange, considering he’s seemed perfectly fine, peachy, even, with the idea of being with her.

You rub a hand against your neck, already feeling the pulsing ache growing there. That limit you thought you were reaching? Yeah, you’re at it.

“I don’t want to do this, Jaehyun.”

“Do what?” He crosses his arms, defiant, and you have to look away from the way his plain grey hoodie stretches over them.

“Deal with you anymore!” You push past him so you can head to your room and end this argument before you ruin the friendship forever. “You always do this! I just wish you would make things clear so I can move on once and for all.”

“I asked you out for Valentine’s Day in college!” He shouts at your retreating back and you stop before you make it into the hallway. His tone quiets, but the strength of his words is as steely as ever. “I don’t know how much clearer I could get. But, if I recall, you were the one who also made things clear.”

What sort of things had you been making clear in college? But more than that, Jaehyun had asked you out for Valentine’s Day?

“What?”

He walks over to the couch and rests against the edge of the armrest, fiddling with one of his belt loops as he repeats himself, “I asked you out for Valentine’s Day and you just never responded. Beyond that, how many times did you send me a version of _I never want to date_ or _Fuck dating?_ ”

“It was true, though!” You cry in exasperation because he knows how much you hated the idea of having a boyfriend in college.

How you never accepted date requests. How you never wanted to look another athlete or frat bro in the face. How at this very moment, you’re almost sort of wishing you did that with him, too, if he’s going to make you feel this way.

You expect him to shout back, to elevate this argument into a screaming match so ferocious you’re going to have to kick him out, but he doesn’t. He blushes instead, a brilliant vermillion galaxy dusting across his cheeks.

Jaehyun says it more to the fabric of your couch than to you, “You never thought that maybe I…”

“That maybe you what?”

“I told you, I think about that night every day,” he whispers as he approaches you, crowding your personal space in with his boyish smell, so much so that the essence of him is everywhere, a tide that will surely drag you under if you’re not careful.“I thought you’d call me after you got back from California, but you never spoke to me again.”

You don’t know if the concept of muscle memory applies to the heart, but every little fiber there, that has woven its way together because of him, remembers that sick tune it had conducted in the NCT house that night. It’s embellished this time, with bold crescendos and crisp pizzicatos of emotion.

“W-we’re speaking now.”

His fingers are sliding past yours, his voice dropped to an almost inaudible murmur as you feel his front curving into you,

“That’s not the point. If I hadn’t come to that party in October, I would’ve never seen you again, and I still think I would’ve lived my whole life being yours.”

Twenty-one year old you was sure that hearing Jaehyun’s confession was the closest to being in love she was ever going to get. But you’re not sure if that can even compare to what’s happening now. Because if you’re hearing this right, Jaehyun has just said that he’s…

“Yours. I’m yours, if you want me,” you hum dreamily, eyelashes fluttering closed, because it all comes back to this. “That’s what you said. I’m yours, if you want me.”

Even if nothing happens right now, if you fall asleep at this moment and don’t wake up, you might be content for an eternity of eternities. Because Jaehyun Jung’s heart hadn’t been yours just for one night, it had been yours for all this time.

When you open your eyes, he’s smiling so poignantly, so affectionately, like you’re the stars hung right by his moon, and his hand is still on yours.

“What are you doing?” You’re not even sure you speak the words loud enough for him to hear, you certainly can’t hear yourself over your own frazzled heart, but he’s Jaehyun, and he knows you, and he answers all the same.

“Looking at you.”

“Why?”

Jaehyun reaches out and tugs softly on the end of your braid.

“Because you look so cute. And I want to remember you like this.”

You’re kissing him before the last spiraling _s_ has left his mouth.

He tastes delectable, like his peach beer and inevitability and two captured hearts, and he is so, so paradoxically tender with you, even still, his fingers under your chin as soft as the finest spun gossamer, his heartbeat under your hand in wild harmonization with your own.

It’s easy for him to push your arms out of the sleeves of your dress and for you to take off his hoodie as you keep kissing, easygoing and mellow and slow, like the two of you want this to stretch out for the next hundred years. It’s easier for you to sweep your tongue into his mouth with such self-assured ease, and easier yet for him to have his hands all over the contours of who you are, like he can’t quite control himself, though there’s no reason for him to. 

It’s the easiest of all for him to lay you down onto your mattress, for you to feel the arc of his body over yours, for his flushed skin to brush yours. To flip you so you’re above him, so you’re taking your place amongst the cluster of stars he’s adored for so long. For the tips of his long fingers to brush against your hipbone, leisurely, effortlessly as if it is second nature to him, having you.

You want to remember him like this, his black hair a halo on your lilac pillowcase, cherry red lips parted yet somehow still curved in a smile as he gapes at you, the elegant slope of his broad, bare shoulders disappearing into your comforter. Above all, you want to remember the way he breathes it out when you’re kissing him once more,

“I’m yours.”

After, you fall asleep without meaning to, because you would’ve liked just a minute more of remembrance.

The harsh tones of your six thirty alarm aren’t as egregious as they usually are, the teasing rays of an early morning sunrise enough of a healing balm that you’re not too upset. You’re not even that put off by the fact that there’s no soft head upon the pillow beside you, mostly because there are four other people in this apartment that you don’t want catching you in any sort of compromising position. 

So, you try to treat it as a normal morning, but you can’t exactly do that. The giggle is ever-present across your mouth as you find an old Yankees crewneck and sweatpants to wear, because you’re not sure if you’re really you right now. Especially when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror on your wall, hair mussed, eyes sleepy, but lovely stain still present across your cheekbones.

You’re somebody’s somebody. 

You allow yourself one tiny, girlish squeal, in solidarity for twenty-one year old you, and then you compose yourself before exiting your room. 

Jaehyun is there, leaning on your kitchen counter reading something on his phone, his wet hair in his eyes, wearing a LS&M law tee and his running shorts. He’s such a picture of _wow_ that you find yourself wondering if you’re selfish for wanting no one else to see this sight ever.

“Hey.”

“Ugh, I feel like I got hit by a bus, dollface,” Sehun groans loudly as he enters the kitchen before Jaehyun can respond, and tucks his chin into your shoulder in greeting. You’re happy, and feeling overly affectionate, so you smush your face against his and pat his cheek.

With your eyes closed, you miss the entire way Jaehyun catches it all.But by the time Sehun turns to leave, waving his hands with a, “I’m going to go out now,” Jaehyun’s neutral expression is already in place.

He pushes a glass of orange juice your way, busying himself with putting away the milk and cereal as he says,

“Johnny and Doyoung went out to grab hash browns to fuel up. I have to meet them downstairs in ten.”

It’s no-nonsense, business as usual friendly Jaehyun, and while you didn’t expect a declaration of love or a spontaneous morning liaison, you thought that something’d be… different.

“Jaehyun, I—,”

“Gooooood morning bro!” Mark trills, sauntering into the living room with his sweatband and knee socks, lowering his tone when he sees that you’re there too. “Hey.”

“Hi,” you respond, and you want to ask him how his night was, if he had a fun time, if he loved the city as much as you do, if he still raps Eminem’s Lose Yourself as his karaoke song of choice, but you end up doing your usual, standing there dumb and silent. At least he's healed enough that he feels comfortable tagging along to this charity run.

Mark looks down to his sneakers, up to you, and back down to his feet, and then he takes an awkward step backward, stuttering, “I’m, I’m going to go out and warm up a bit before we go.”

The door slams behind him with a thundering boom and there’s not even a heartbeat of time before Jaehyun is asking coolly,

“So, what is up with all the weird tension you’ve had with Mark this weekend?”

The nerves start to prick up from your wrists, making your skin itchy with anxiety, because you hadn’t been doing as good a job as you thought at hiding all of this. You don’t know why you expected to be successful at this task, considering Jaehyun has been able to read you as easily as the most basic of books since the moment you met. You wish it was the same for you, because you’re definitely not able to read his stormy expression right now.

“What? What do you mean?”

He shrugs roughly, and it’s a gesture loaded with forced informality,

“I mean, I’ve never seen the two of you interact before, but I just, I don’t know, assumed you’d be a hell of a lot closer. You worshiped the ground he walked on in college just as much as I did.”

Your head is spinning and this is such a one eighty from last night that you can only fumble out, “I, can we not talk about Mark right now?”

“Okay,” the refrigerator takes the brunt of his unfounded anger as he forces it shut, then turns to level you with such an icy look. “If you don’t want to talk about Mark, do you want to talk about why you didn’t speak to me after graduation?”

“Jaehyun, I, what? Did I, did I do something?” The words get caught in a jumbled mess due to the boulder lodged in the back of your throat; you thought he’d never make you nervous in this way again, but you’re fumbling with it all, how have you messed this up?

He looks like he immediately regrets his words, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly as he sidesteps you to pick up his sweater, the same sweater you’d taken right off him. He puts it on, and then his shoes, and that whole expanse of time is loaded with silent nothingness.

You think he’s going to leave without a word, but he stops when he’s in the doorway to turn back to you, voice quiet,

“No, I’m sorry, I’m just tired. I, I’ll text you after the race.”

But for the very first time, there’s no text waiting for you on your phone.

—

And there’s no text the next day, and the next, and but you’re you, and you’re busy, and you keep seeing Mark around the city and because of all that you don’t really have time to dwell on it. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. 

But tonight? It’s your birthday, and you’ve had a few drinks, and Sehun and Johnny have blown their wallets out arranging this party that you don’t need. But you’re going to have fun and decidedly not care about anything else.

The dress is helping, you’re wrapped up in the most delicate red silk, the train littered in these delicately embroidered gold flowers. Sehun had fussed over your hair for an hour, his work with the curling iron nothing short of magical as he transformed your tresses into this wildly cascading, sophisticated mass of curls. 

People on the street gawked at you from the moment you left your apartment to the moment you stepped into the lobby of the Plaza Hotel. Even now as you wait for the elevator, the patrons in the surrounding area cannot stop whispering. 

Someone joins you in the elevator corridor, obviously male if the shiny black dress shoes are any indication. 

“Hi. Going up?”

“Yeah,” you answer pleasantly, then glance over to see who’s joined you.

The tableau you’re presented with is of a shocked Jaehyun, mouth fallen open in surprise as he registers that it’s you. The two of you must be cut from the same cloth, because you’re gaping as you take in his appearance, the classic black suit with gold detailing that matches yours, the fact that he’s somehow chosen to forgo an undershirt. You’re mad at him, but you’re not, but really, you are, because he’s smiling at you like nothing’s happened.

“Y/n. You, you look be—,”

Your phone goes off loudly, an embarrassingly loud interruption, and you pick it up as fast as you can once you see the id, 

“Johnny? Hello? Are you here already?”

The elevator dings, and Jaehyun holds the door so you can step inside first, then presses the button for the penthouse. 

“I’m with Mark,” Johnny starts hesitantly, and that’s okay, because you know your brother was invited tonight. But you’re not prepared for what comes next. “He just got a call from the Yankees front office, asking if he wants to interview for positions here in the city.”

“What?!”

You had no idea Mark was even looking for jobs in New York. You anticipate the dread, imagine it will be slithering up your spine any second now, but all you can feel is unadulterated excitement. The prospect of your little brother living in the city with you might be the best thing you’ve ever heard. You’re not sure how anyone from the Yankees even knows his contact information, and you can’t imagine he’d be happy to give up being a fan of the Dodgers, but the idea of Mark in New York is like living a dream.

“Listen, y/n, he’s not ha—,” Johnny’s voice warbles in and out with static as the elevator ascends. 

“I’m in the elevator. Johnny? Johnathan!” ****

The call cuts out before you can salvage the connection, but you’re bursting at the seams to share with your companion. ****

“Oh my god,” you trill in delight, clapping your hands together. “John just told me Mark got an interview with the Yankees.”

The lack of surprise on Jaehyun’s face, coupled with the bashful way he scratches at his ear, gives it all away.

“Wait, that… was that you?”

Jaehyun nods. “We grabbed dinner the other night. He, uh, might’ve mentioned that he would’ve loved to go into baseball ops.”

You’re stunned, flabbergasted, gobsmacked, whatever other words you can't string together.

“My dad knows the Yankees front office guy through mutual friends. He was happy to help,”he crafts the next sentence slowly, taking careful looks at you to gauge your reaction. “He used to ask me why the two of you didn’t take the jet back home together after the accident. ”

Oh. That means, that night, at Jaehyun’s apartment. Senator Jung knew exactly who you were and didn’t even care. He knew about you, Jaehyun had told his father about you.

“I, I don’t know what to say,” your heart is blossomed fully because of him. “Thank you.” ****

You want to hug him, to kiss his cheek, his mouth, anything to start repaying the chest of debt that you owe him, but the elevator doors open and there’s a sharp outcry of your name, ****

“Y/n!”

It’s your brother, face purple with fury as he approaches you, Johnny and Sehun hot on his heels.

“Mark?”

He throws an irate finger in your face as he immediately starts a commotion, voice drawing the attention of everyone around you, “I thought I told you to stop fucking interfering in my business!”

“Yeah,” you pointedly lower your voice so that his outburst is quickly forgotten, though it does nothing to hide the shake in your words. “I think I’ve followed your request to the best of my ability.”

“Then why the fuck am I getting calls from the Yankees asking if I’m interested in management positions?”

“I-,”

“That was m-,”

You and Jaehyun start to answer at the same time, the spluttering words overlapping in a mishmash of apology, but Mark stabs the dagger right through your heart.

“I’m happy with my life the way it is right now, I don’t need you to ruin it a second time.”

“When I got that call I thought you were going to die! I was trying to save you, Mark!” This is the same argument, this is the worst day of your life making its greatest comeback.

“By making it so I would never play baseball again?”

The partygoers in the hallway dissolve into your brother’s orthopedic surgeon and his team, the music fades into his solemn words,

_His foot was crushed in the accident. We have to insert a number of metal rods in order to stabilize it, but in doing so, he will lose the mobility necessary to play baseball again. If you choose not to have the surgery, he will need to have his foot amputated within the week._

“The doctors gave me a choice, it was put in the rods and end your career, or cut off your foot and end your career. There was no third option!”

Mark shakes his head, glassy tears already slipping down his cheeks, and he is so resigned when he says, “You could’ve asked them to wait. If they heard from me, they would’ve found a way.”

“I’ve said I’m sorry,” you whisper, holding the raging rapids of your guilt at bay so you can at least try to defend yourself. This wasn’t a position you should’ve ever been put in. “I’ve said it a thousand times, but I was twenty-one and terrified and I didn’t know what to do. I thought you would’ve wanted to keep your foot no matter what.”

“What, you just forget how much baseball means to me? Don’t you remember how upset I was?”

That is the harshest blow of all, because you could never forget. You were the one who bought him his first jersey, who was in the stands for his first game at Stanford, who had him autograph a scrap of paper so you could hang it above your bed in your dorm room at college. You could never, ever forget.

“You really think I don’t remember? That I don’t remember my own brother waking up, sobbing in his hospital bed so hard that he made himself sick? What you said to me that day? I remember it, I remember it exactly,” you’re angry now, furious, and you can’t even stop yourself from throwing his own dark words back at him, hoping the sting of each blow will hurt him as much as it ruined you. “ _She’s not my sister, she’s my_ ** _half-_** _sister. She’s the reason why I can’t play baseball anymore, it’s her fault, my life would be better if just never saw her again!_ So don’t say I don’t remember, because I forced myself to watch every Dodgers game after your accident, to remind me what I did to you.”

Johnny gasps loudly at the concealed truth coming out; Sehun buries his face in his hands, the work that you two did to hide it all crumbling apart in an instant.

Mark actually manages to look ashamed of his behavior for a second, then it’s back to the status quo as he snaps,

“You made the biggest decision of my life for me and then just abandoned me. You just can’t, can’t explain that.”

The fatigue you feel is exhausting, and you have nothing left but to bare yourself fully, to lay it all out on the line and be as honest as possible. One more minute of this and it’s going to kill you.

“No. No, I didn’t. You were an adult then, you made it very clear what you wanted from me, and I have tried my best to respect it. Really, I have. You don’t know any of this, but I stayed in a hotel in Palo Alto, and sat in the waiting room of the hospital every day until you were discharged, and it was only then that I flew back to Chicago. I paid your hospital bills, and for your rehab, and I would wait desperately for the occasional times Coach Lee would text me about how you were doing. When I heard from him that you wanted to move back after finishing up at Stanford, I got a job in New York so you could be at home in peace.”

You hear Jaehyun let out a quiet _oh_ , but you’re crying now as you look at Mark, his baby boy face blurring behind the sheen of your tears. He is the only family you’ve got left, but you’re willing to let him live his own life forever if that’s what he really wants.

“I’m so sorry, for all that. I really am. I don’t want you to move to New York if you don’t want to. All I want is for you to be happy.”

“I, I just… I don’t know,” Mark mumbles as he starts to head to the elevator in a daze.

This is probably goodbye forever, and you can’t leave it like this, you can’t let your little brother go without telling him once how you truly feel, and so, you do.

“I don’t know how to fix this, and I don’t know if we ever will. All I know is that I’m happy, because I finally got to see you on my birthday again.”

You dig a palm into your eye, unable to staunch the deluge of tears as you watch his figure disappear into the elevator, and Jaehyun is there, his warm arm around you, murmuring something into your ear as he guides you away from the site of the carnage.

“Let’s go see if he’s okay,” Sehun sputters, shoving a shell-shocked Johnny away from you, the two of them completely taken aback at what’s just unfolded, leaving the two of you alone in a deserted alcove.

“Come here,” Jaehyun sighs softly, taking out his gold pocket square to dab at your cheeks. It smells like him, lovely and spicy and distracting and wonderful. His thumb traces the horizon of your cheekbone, his gaze two whirlpools of healing elixir. “Why didn’t you tell m—,”

“J, there you are! I was looking for you” Jennie materializes onto the scene, dolled up in a cotton candy confection of tulle, and that is enough to explode your heart into the most devastating shrapnel.

He brought her here as he date, to your birthday party.

“Oh,” you breathe out as you push Jaehyun’s hand away from you. “Of course.”

“Can you give us a second?” He shoos Jennie out of the room in a hurry, but by the time he turns back around, it’s too late. “I’m sor—,”

The cruel cut of your eyelid could’ve slayed a thousand fickle men like him in that moment, but your voice is perfectly composed, “You don’t have to apologize for bringing her here. You don’t.”

“I, I….”

Just a week ago, you were the stars and he was the moon, glistening and beautiful and complimentary in the vast galaxy of each other. But you’re not that naive anymore. He is _not_ the moon, he is not free to drag the tide of you back and forth like he always does. He is not the moon. He’s not.

“But I cannot do this anymore.”

“Do wh—,”

He tries to reach for you, but you flinch away, obstinate. And there’s no way he can deny your clarification,

“Act like nothing’s happened, when too much already has.”

Jaehyun knows it’s true, it’s been true since the beginning. Texting you all winter break, then ignoring you on campus. Kissing you at the NCT house, then never calling you again. Burying his true feelings about baseball and Harvard. Sleeping with you, and now showing up with Jennie. You’ve played a supporting role in all of this, yes, but this is also just who he is, something that’s never going to change.

“You know, I, I honestly think you might be the love of my life,” you let out a choked laugh as you admit it, surprised it comes out so easily after years of you stashing it away like it was worth nothing. “But it’s okay if I’m not yours.”

Jaehyun’s eyes are so dyed in hurt, but this is the cycle he’s perpetuated, him breaking your heart, you breaking his in return. It’s his own fault, though, because when he said he’d be yours forever, it’s obvious he hadn’t meant it.

Because of that, and because you hate yourself for believing his lie, you have to get one final dig in before you leave the room.

“It’s okay, really. I get it. Five hundred million dollars is a lot of money.”

You go through your drafts in your cab on the way home, and delete every single one of them.

> <UNSENT MESSAGES>
> 
> [2017 May 24, 6:40 am] **you to my mvp:** can i call u i dont know what to do abt mark   
> [2017 May 30, 7:52 pm] **you to my mvp:** are u there im crying and i just need to talk to u  
> [2017 Jul 1, 4:43 pm] **you to my mvp:** im back in chi, not sure what you’re doing  
> [2017 Sep 3, 9:21 am] **you to my mvp:** hope you’re doing well  
> [2017 Sep 3, 9:25 am] **you to my mvp:** i miss you

—

There is someone pacing back and forth in front of your apartment when the elevator deposits you in the hallway. You don’t even see them, preoccupied as you are with lifting your skirts to make sure you don’t step all over the pretty dress and ruin one more thing, and you run smack into a sturdy chest. 

But you don’t need to look up to know who it is, because you grew up with the sound of that breathing.

In front of you, Mark screws his eyes shut, balls his hands into fists, and then just blurts it all out,

“My flight to Chicago is tomorrow at ten. I’d, I’d like you to come back with me. Just for a little.”

You’ve had the worst night of your life, you’ve incinerated the strand of devotion tying you to the man you love, and here is your kid brother, coming through once again to save the day.

You run a hand through his hair like you used to when he was falling asleep, giggling in spite of yourself, “Oh, Mark. Do you want to get pizza and pull an all nighter?”

“Yeah,” his voice breaks softly, smile watery, intentions lovely, as he puts an arm around you and hits the button to call the elevator. “Let me pay, because it’s your birthday.”

While he pays for two supreme pies at the pizza shop on the corner, you put in a request for extended leave at work, and buy the last remaining ticket on his flight, chuckling a tad bit at the irony of you doing so without a care. Sehun comes home from the abandoned party first, and then Johnny, but they don’t say anything. They only scoop up their own slices of pizza, and the four of you squish in on the couch to watch reruns of Arrested Development, together once again. ****

They take you to LaGuardia in the morning, and Mark sleeps the whole flight with his head slumped against your shoulder. But as soon as you get to his little apartment on the lake, you sit him down before you even let him unpack his suitcase, because you know you have to have this talk.  ****

Pulling up a rolling chair to the foot of his bed, you gently take his hands in yours as you start, “I didn’t call and you didn’t call, we’ve both fucked this up, but I was just trying to do what I thought you wanted. I knew that I messed up, and didn’t want to make it any harder on you.”

“I was so excited when Johnny called, because I thought it’d finally be the chance to make things right,” Mark sniffs, gripping you tightly. “Then you called me your half-brother outside of the stadium, and it just felt like that day in the hospital all over again.”

The deep dart of pain you’d self-inflicted upon using the _half_ modifier that day is still fresh, even now. You shake your head, “You know that never mattered to me. Never.”

“I know, I’ve always known. And I don’t think I was ever really mad at you, because you made the right choice. I would've had it a thousand times worse if they cut off my foot, ” he concedes, and you recognize it’s probably the first time he’s had the courage to say this out loud. “You were just the easiest to blame. I, I actually wish that you had been there. For all of it.”

It is the one thing you regret most in the world, and you would walk back your life a thousand times if it meant you were there to care for him during his worst days.

“Me too. And you know it never mattered to me whether you became a baseball player or not. I would’ve never forgiven myself if you had died. That’s all I care about.”

“Yeah, and I can see now that that’s why I struggled so hard. Baseball was a part of me for so long, I had no idea who the fuck I was without it.”

This is a direct echo of someone else, but you have to heap your attention onto Mark, this isn’t the time for that to come back up.

You listen intently as he divulges, “Things have been better. I’ve been seeing my therapist again and it’s been helping. But h-how long do you think you’re going to stay?”

He's scared you're going to leave him, anxiety skyrocketing through the lilt of his sentence, but this isn't something he'll have to worry about ever again. You kiss his hand, holding it against your face as you make your unbreakable vow, “This is part of ‘all of it,’ isn’t it? So I’ll stay here as long as you like. Okay?”

The smile he rewards you with, the old Mark’s smile, is enough to know you’re doing the right thing, “Okay.”

So, you do.

You stay with Mark for over a month, working remotely for your company as best you can, taking the time to heal the weathered but still standing branches of your family tree. You grocery shop together, ignoring the mushrooms but doubling up on yellow squash, and you fold all his laundry for him. You drive him to weekly physical therapy, take him to look at puppies to adopt, and get him double decker ice cream cones on days when he’s feeling more down than usual.

You’ll never tell him how much you actually miss New York, you miss the subway and lunches with Johnny and the rush of the nightlife. You miss Sehun’s rap music that he plays while showering and Sunday waffles. But your brother is astute as ever — he takes you to get the closest thing to a Manhattan pizza you can get, and the two of you watch more baseball out at bars than you ever have in your life.

One night, after you’ve both had a few beers, you give him the broad strokes of what happened with Jaehyun. He’s not surprised, and does his requisite bothering to try and get you to fix it. But you’ve accepted that that’s a chapter of your life you’ve already written the ending to, and you most likely won’t have an opportunity to have it edited any further. That’s just how it goes.

Another evening, when the sun is fading into this supernova of pastel pinks and oranges, Mark plops down on your bed while you're still working.

“Hey, sis. Let’s go out to dinner tonight.”

You aimlessly finish typing out an email, catching the way his grin is a bit more enthusiastic than usual, “Mmm, good day at work? How was your appointment?”

“Something like that.”

“Where do you want to go, then?”

“RPM Steak,” he declares confidently, and that finally gets you to turn around in your chair. Even though your salaries afford you the luxury of eating out, you never go to places this fancy.

“RPM Steak? Mark Lee!”

“Come on, it’s my treat.” He grabs the first dress he sees in your suitcase and tosses it at you, scurrying out of the room when he hears you fuming loudly.

You pester him in the car, on the walk up to the restaurant, and inside the lobby as you wait to be seated, “So, are you going to tell me why you all of sudden wanted to go to dinner at downtown’s swankiest restaurant, or are you going to keep being mysterious and evasive.”

Mark gestures like he’s locking his mouth and throwing away the key, and you’re about to punch him really hard when you hear your name,

“Y/n?”

There are Jaehyun’s parents, their security guards and driver loitering close by, and they look happy to see you, not like you’d just crushed their son in one fell swoop not too long ago.

“Senator Jung! Mrs. Jung! It’s very nice to see you,” you greet them politely as you shake the Senator’s hand and air kiss his wife on the cheek. “This is my brother, Mark.”

“Nice to finally meet you, Mark,” Mark and the Senator shake hands, firm and sturdy. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

The lines around Mark’s eyes crinkle as he laughs, ever the jokester, “So has everyone.”

Mrs. Jung eyes the fancy suit and dress the pair of you are wearing and questions, “What brings you out tonight? Celebrating something?”

“No,” you shrug, looking at Mark, who’s still not giving away anything. “We’re just here for dinner.”

“Actually,” your idiot brother drags out the a in _actually_. “We are celebrating.”

“We are?” You repeat, hoping he’s not preparing to say something idiotic like _celebrating your mom._

“Yep, celebrating the fact that I’m going to be taking the job with the Yankees.”

He drops the bomb so nonchalantly, little face so sly, you’re not quite sure you’ve understood him right.

“What!?”

The smile fully bursts across his face, satisfied and relieved all at once, “I’ve been interviewing the past month and a half, and they offered it to me this morning.”

Mrs. Jung squeals in delight, reaching over to kiss Mark on the cheek, and the senator proudly slaps him on the back, as if Mark is his own child,

“My son was right when he told me I couldn’t convince you to join the Sox. Congratulations, Mark. I’m glad you got to stick with the sport, after everything you went through.”

This is the proudest, happiest moment of your life. Your own baby brother, moving to New York to join the Yankees. His dream would be coming true after all.

“It should be me thanking you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without your help, sir.”

“No, no, what did Jeffrey say on the phone that day?” The senator snaps his fingers, trying to recall Jaehyun’s words, and you’re suddenly breathless.

“Something like ‘baseball’s greatest young star’…” Mrs. Jung wonders aloud.

“Right, right. Baseball’s greatest young star should be able to shine anywhere,” he recites.

Oh Jaehyun. You didn’t.

“Mark Lee, party of two?” The waitress calls.

Senator Jung reaches out to shake your hand, then Mark’s one more time, “I’d very much like to know what you get up to in New York. It was good to see you both.”

“Oh, y/n, one more thing,” he calls, after you’ve turned to follow Mark down the stairs into the restaurant and you run back alone to see what he wants.

“Yes?”

He puts a warm hand on your shoulder; he isn’t Senator Jung then, he is just Jaehyun’s father when he says,

“I always wondered what sort of person my son would want to do everything for, and when I met you, it all made sense.”

—

Johnny is an enabler.

There’s no other word for who he is as a person but an enabler. You haven’t forgotten the incident with the goats, or the party last October, or the disastrous attempt at a birthday celebration for you. So, it’s no surprise that it all starts with him, it being your apartment, filled to the brim with people you don’t know. This is two day parties rolled into one, and you’ve only barely escaped the fracas by heading out into the balcony, almost empty solo cup in hand.

The sky is this brilliantly clear blue, a manufactured hue of cerulean that reminds you of one of your favorite liquors, and the warm summer wind dances through the red scarf tying up your ponytail. Down on the street, there are families and dog walkers alike, warm laughter of the city’s citizens floating up to your apartment.

You hear the sliding door open, and a bottle is placed in front of you on the patio table.

It’s a clear bottle of Tito’s vodka, still your go-to drink after all these years, and there’s a post it with the Yankees logo in the corner taped to the front of it.

_Five for five. -J_

“I’m sorry. For what happened in the spring.”

You know it’s him without looking, but you kind of have to check. Black hair neatly parted, blue shorts, maroon v-neck, bewitchingly careful smile, all encased in this gorgeous aurora of rosy sunlight, if that isn’t a Jaehyun Jung signature look, you don’t know what is.

You ignore his pointed apology, not sure if you're ready to get into it yet, “Mark’s in town. ”

Jaehyun coughs a little, surprised, “I, did you hear me?”

The building across the street from you has a Yankees flag hanging in the window, and the tears prick your eyes even now as you proudly inform him, “He’s taking the job with the Yankees. That’s why we threw this party.”

His shocked little laugh bubbles across the balcony, then he glances at you in confusion, “That’s amazing, but I thought this was Sehun’s going away party? The whole he and Suho are, like, madly in love but can’t be dating coworkers thing?”

You turn your head over your shoulder, catching a glimpse of your best friend and his boyfriend curled up together on the couch, and you nod your head,

“Yes, but I wanted to tell you that Mark’s here too. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

There’s a thousand other unsaid things in that sentence, but you’re also sure he doesn’t need you to spell them out.

“Hmm, I guess that means we’ll be coworkers then,” he states casually, and you whip your head to meet his eyes. “I’m quitting the firm next week to join the Yankees legal team. It’s not out yet, but everyone will know soon. You, you’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Jae, that’s so, so great. Congratulations.”

You involuntarily reach out to touch his arm in support, but stop yourself before you can make contact. When he catches you holding yourself back, it bursts forth from him in a great lava flow of pent up emotion,

“You heard what I said earlier, right? I am so sorry about the way I treated you. You never deserved any of that.”

You’re confirmed not ready for this conversation, you haven’t spent any time preparing for it, nor do you think you’d ever be prepared for something like this.

“Yes, Jaehyun, I did.”

“No, but just let me,” he doesn’t quite take your hand, but you feel the heat of him next to you, of that ever-present something that’ll exist between you forever. “I’ve always been extremely insecure, maybe more than I ever wanted to admit, but after baseball didn’t work out, I think that changed me completely. I never felt good enough, never felt like I was worth anything, and you took the worst of it. I just could never figure out the right thing to do, and for that I’m truly sorry. 

You felt closed off to me, like that there were others you liked and trusted more. I was constantly scared of losing you, and I, I thought ignoring the problems would make it go away. Because, to me, it seemed like I was the one who didn't deserve you because of the kind of person I was, and that I just fucked it all up. I wanted to text you a thousand times, but it felt insincere, to do it like that. But you were in Chicago and I didn’t have an excuse to come see you. Until now.”

At the heart of it all — beneath _the_ Jaehyun Jung, chapter president of Nu Chi Theta, captain of the baseball team, and perennial dean’s list member — is just a boy, trying to give so much of himself to so many. Just a boy, stretched a tad too thin, trying to do a bit too much of everything.

And at the heart of you — beneath the startup employee, friend, fake girlfriend, confidant, sister, caretaker — is just a girl, who understands every little bit of that.

You take the Tito’s bottle and pour a little into your cup before sipping lightly, the first olive branch. Your fingers tap the plastic, and then you reply,

“Mark told me this when he was in Chicago, that baseball was a part of him for so long, he had no idea who he was without it. Do you know who you are, without baseball?”

“No, I don’t think I do,” he admits honestly, and this might be the clearest picture of that boy you’ve ever seen. “But I feel like it’s finally okay for me to find out.”

“I should’ve told you about Mark,” you blurt, passing the cup over to him. “About Sehun, about my life and all that was going wrong, and I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

“You didn’t have to,” he denies, then hesitates for a second, before drinking the rest of the shared vodka concoction.

“No, I wanted to. Because you were the person I wanted to share everything with,” you confess, because you had been so close to doing so so many times. And there will be no one like him who can draw this kind of shyness out in you.

“Have I ruined that completely?” Jaehyun whispers, completely blown apart with nerves at the possibility that this might be over forever, that your eternal open door has been slammed shut to him.

The word you murmur might as well be another beautiful ray of the summer sun,

“No.”

“Hey sis—,” Mark sashays out onto the patio to show off his half Canadian, half American flag swim trunks and explodes in delight when he sees Jaehyun. “Jung! Long time no see haha. Yo sis, quick, take a picture of us.”

You shake off whatever cobwebs of nostalgic wistfulness that have built up during your conversation with Jaehyun and pull out your phone so you can snap the pics. The two of them pose goofily, their arms thrown around each other, peace signs hoisted high in the air in makeshift Yankees Ys.

“Let me send that to you right quick, before I forget,” you offer after Mark has disappeared, finding the recently abandoned _Jaehyun Jung_ thread and pushing it through without dwelling too much on the previous messages.

You don’t mean to look, but it’s very hard to miss the notification on his phone when it lights up on the table beside you.

> [2021 May 27, 12:34 pm] **pie girl:** _img689.jpg_

“Wait, wait, wait,” you shift the screen so you can see more clearly. “Am I, is my contact in your phone _pie girl_?”

His ears go a fiery, fiery red in an instant, his fingers working in rapid succession to lock the screen before you can continue your scrutiny.

“Um, yeah. It’s been your nickname in my phone since college.”

_I called you pie girl in my head until I figured out your name._

Even though you didn’t technically know him then, you figure you’ve been a goner ever since. 

“Give me that!” You try to snatch the phone out of his grasp, but he’s too fast for you. He holds it out in his hands, his long limbs making it impossible for you to reach. You dig deep into your box of tricks, and fix him with the most pleading, cutesy gaze you’ve ever dared to attempt,“Please?”

He hands his phone over, immediate and obedient.

The deafening silence out on that balcony presses into you until all you can register is the labored breathing of two people who are complete and utter fools. It only takes a second, one single exhale from Jaehyun’s pretty lips, and your fingers move to edit your contact name. And when they do, they type at the breakneck pace of your lively heart, one character for each rush of blood through your veins. It doesn’t take long, it’s just two little characters different, but what you’re left with might change it all.

_ **my pie girl** _ ****

You look up, and Jaehyun Jung is smiling at you.

“Pie girl, because once upon a time you wanted to throw a plate of whipped cream in my face. And well, I’m yours. If you want me.”

**fin.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u enjoyed!
> 
> lmk if there are other things you would like me to write or msg me w any requests, i am incredibly bored at home and would like to flex my creativity!!! ty as always :*


	3. a teaspoon of sugar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That’s a common name, right, there’s probably a hundred, no, a thousand, maybe a hundred thousand girls in Manhattan alone with that set of syllables making up the personal label.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise bitch! bet you thought you'd seen the last of this fic
> 
> just kidding, this isn't a continuation of the story, not really. this is a gift for a very lovely person - my comment pen pal faded_moon, who won a fic giveaway i did on my long ass fic stitch your heart (shameless promo plug). they asked for a jh pov of some scenes from this story so here's what i came up with :)
> 
> please don't ask me to write any more from this pov bc i have no self control and would end up re-writing the entire thing and i dont have time for that right now!!!!!!!!!! hahahahaha

It's a little known fact, that Jaehyun hates parties now. 

Like, sure, he used to be the king of the rager. He threw more than his fair share of apartment blowouts back when he lived with Moon, and had a de facto invite to whatever whoever was throwing wherever on campus. It was basically the same deal at Harvard once everyone found out who he was — _thanks a lot, hired security guards_ — and he felt obligated to continue that lifestyle from a misplaced sense of wanting to belong as an equal amongst his peers. But now he’s old and he’s tired and he can think of a hundred other places he’d rather be other than outside Sehun Oh’s apartment, waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. It’s blasting Young Thug on the inside, he can hear people yelling, and he already knows he’ll leave this soiree with a massive, massive headache. 

Not like he doesn’t already have one, because being around his boss while all of his other colleagues are already drunk is making him anxious. He’s never been to a party with Suho before, and has no idea how the older man will take it when Haechan, one of the interns Jaehyun’s in charge of, faces the group with a lecherous grin and even more lurid tidbit of information, “Yo, before we go in, I need to say this. I heard Oh's roommate is super hot. Somebody saw the picture of them he keeps on his desk. Total ten.“

Jaehyun locks eyes with his own roommate who’s leaned up against the wall, and that silent gesture prompts Doyoung to speak up, “You have a girlfriend, remember? Are you trying to tell us you’re also into dudes?” Everyone cackles loudly at that, Suho maybe less so, and perhaps Jaehyun should’ve given everyone a warning to not discuss sex, politics, money, or anything, really, in the presence of a senior associate. 

"He lives with a chick, dumbass,” Haechan half slurs, and cursing is added onto that taboo list, too, when Suho’s nose wrinkles with obvious displeasure. “Some girl he knows from Illinois."

Ugh, as if he needed another reason not to want to go inside. Being reminded of home is something Jaehyun tries to avoid as much as possible. He doesn’t hate it, but it’s a particular brand of discomfort he doesn’t like to accept. Sometimes he wishes he picked the firm in London instead, because then it would’ve put an ocean of separation in between him and that epicenter of neutral dissatisfaction. 

Suho is actually the one to get into it with the intern, mischievous grin on his face not at all like him, as is his following comment, "I'll bet you five dollars that's something Sehun's made up to stop the firm secretaries from hitting on him. If it’s not a dude, it’s an ugly chick for sure.“

Even though it’s his superior that’s made the comment, Jaehyun can’t help but roll his eyes and buffer, “Can we not bet on a woman's attractiveness? Thank you." 

It’s the kind of shit his old brothers and teammates used to love to discuss and he really, well. He hated that, too. He kind of hated most everyone in college if he’s being honest, save for a select few and by that, he really only means Johnny. If he ever had a choice, he would never have joined NCT, but his dad always wanted his son to continue that legacy, so of course he did so. 

Jennie and Irene share a lovesick type of gaze that isn’t hard for him to miss, and that there is why he doesn’t understand why guys make those kinds of comments. It’s easy to win girls over by simply being nice, that's all he had to do in college. Even now, it had been no bother to him at all to charm Jennie into bed after it was heavily suggested she’d be a suitable person to keep in his orbit. He’s not particularly mad about it, not particularly smitten with it either, she’s nice enough, and hot, and whatever. He’s fine with hanging out with her, that’s all.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Jennie purrs, slipping her hand right through the crook of his elbow in an effort to get close, and to also remind Irene that while she’s dating Suho there needs to be no lines crossed here.

Not that he wants to, he’s not a womanizer, not in the way he used to have all those dates back at Northwestern. Jennie is more than suitable enough to spend his time with. He just, doesn’t really want to have a girlfriend. To have to do any of that stuff, like picnicking in the park and strolling through the streets hand in hand and saying anything deeper than whatever basic, flirty sentiment gets them worked up. He doesn’t have time for that. 

He just shoots her a close-lipped smile and tries to suppress his wince when the door flies open and the entire inside of the apartment yells at the top of their lungs when they see who’s arrived. 

The apartment is weirdly familiar in a way he doesn’t expect from Sehun, who has the messiest desk on the floor and has loudly proclaimed once that he didn’t really know how to use a vacuum. Despite the party raging on, the living room is still neat and tidy, books stacked in alphabetical order, throw pillows not misaligned despite the number of people draped over them. There’s a large Yankees flag pinned up over the threshold of the kitchen, and a whole host of framed photos littered over the top of the cabinets, filled with pictures he can’t make out. This is all the mystery roommate’s doing, he’s sure, but he honestly couldn’t give a shit who it was, nor does he care to find out. It’s so fucking loud, and he wants to leave.

"LS&M's golden boy is here!” Lucas bellows as he claps Jaehyun right across the back in effervescent greeting, snapping him out of his observations of the place. “Now it's really a party!"

He really doesn’t want his reputation here to become that of a partier. That would ruin all the hard work he’s been putting in to be known as a good lawyer and nothing else at the firm. Just Jaehyun Jung, JD, and not… any of the other nonsense that used to trail his name when he was discussed. 

He lifts the six pack in his hand as a self-explanatory gesture, then lamely makes his excuse, "I'm just here with my beer offering, then we were going to head out-,"

“Y/n, get over here!”

The beer bottles thud against the table with a sonorous clink of glass upon glass, or that might just be his heartbeat exploding in his ears, overpowering this rigid, hard silence that descends upon the room. That’s a common name, right, there’s probably a hundred, no, a thousand, maybe a hundred thousand girls in Manhattan alone with that set of syllables making up the personal label.Johnny has really just called some random out of the hallway that had the same name, it’s really not going to…

be you.

Of course, he’s an idiot for expecting anything different when there’s a _Yankees flag_ hanging in prominence in the middle of the apartment, and Sehun has made it known that he's never watched baseball a day in his life. But it’s been how many years since graduation - he doesn’t know at this point, his mind can’t do the mental math - and he is currently watching you walk through the crowd like no time has passed at all. You look nervous for some reason, like the idea of being called out in front of a crowd is incredibly anxiety-inducing, a sentiment he can heavily relate to. 

“You need to fill your god damn cup!” Johnny basically yells at the top of his lungs, and that seems to wash a fraction of the anxiety out of your face. 

Jaehyun idly wonders, when he watches you take a rather large gulp of straight vodka out of your blue cup, if he needs to crack all six beers at once to get remotely close to the point of being okay with what any of this is shaping up to be. What this is shaping up to be is him unabashedly staring - he knows he is, he can't help it - as you walk out onto the balcony alone. No Johnny. No Sehun, who was by your side earlier. None of his idiotic coworkers or people he doesn’t know by your side. Just you. Beer won’t be enough, he finds a random handle of whiskey on the counter with no preamble and pours himself a glass to chug. 

"I'm going to get some air, feeling a little claustrophobic. You know,” he vaguely says in Jennie’s direction, not knowing if she’s listening or will even accept that as an explanation when he’s never mentioned his claustrophobia, not like she’d care.

And then he’s walking towards the sliding glass door, head filled to bursting with the idea that you definitely will not recognize him, much less remember him, remember any of it. He’s going to have to brace himself when this goes in a direction he doesn’t want it to go yet he’s going to make himself do it anyways. 

“Hey.”

You’re looking at something below your apartment building, and to this day, Jaehyun does not understand how you don’t show a lick of surprise, much less any other discernible emotion on your face, when you glance at him over an alluring shoulder and greet, “Oh. Hi.”

The NCT house had been incredibly dark that night, but he still remembers what you had looked like then. The you of now is not a far cry from the you of then, maybe your ponytail’s a bit longer, maybe the freckles on your sunny cheek have bloomed, visible even under the starlight. And it’s not quite the same dress, because that one was a specific shade of wine red he can’t really let go of, but it’s black and the skirt flutters in the breeze and oh god, he’s in such trouble already.

“I didn’t realize you lived in the city,” he starts as he comes up to the railing beside you, making sure he keeps his distance so his body is not compelled to do anything disproportionate to the mood of the moment. Thankfully, his mind had come up with an opening statement that wouldn’t scare you away, since you don't immediately return to the party. The last he checked - foolishly, he might add, scrolling through your unused Instagram for any hint of where you might be - you were still in Chicago. But now you’re here, in an apartment you live in with Sehun.

You take a sip of your drink, and he still can’t read any emotion in your answer, “Yeah, I moved here last May.”

He can’t hide the cough that expels from his lungs when he finds that bit of information out. “We’ve lived in the same city for almost half a year and I’m just hearing about this now?”

“Is it that much of a surprise?” you ask him. _Yes,_ he wants to answer, until he realizes you’ve meant that rhetorically. He can feel his forehead crinkling with displeasure when you continue,“I mean, this is like the third conversation we’ve actually had in person. You’re probably not the first recipient of y/n news Johnny thinks of, nor me of you.”

“Right." He’s really not doing a good job maintaining control over his responses. There never used to be a need for a third party messenger, because you used to text him everything, and him, you. You would’ve known without having to have Johnny tell you. He wouldn’t have found out like this. 

He can’t tell if you’re being polite or if you’re genuinely interested when you ask, “So you, uh you work at the law firm too? Baseball didn’t work out?”

His hand twitches against his glass when you inadvertently bring up the sorest of sore spots. “No, ah, the deal with my father was that if I didn’t get drafted, I’d go to law school.”

There was no actual deal made, with a handshake, a pen to paper, a legal contract signed between him and his dad. He’d had the draft day calls, the meetings with the MLB teams that all seniors did. But not a single one had extended a hand, had bowed their head and felt it right to accept a two time All-American who wasn’t the best, but was maybe very good. He’d told his parents the news after hiding it for as long as he possibly could, and as expected, his mother had been upset,. His dad really didn’t say much, but when it was about time that law schools were opening up applications, sent an email with a few links to admissions portals. And that was it. 

He’d never actually gotten the chance to tell you.

“Let me guess. Princeton, like your dad?”

Jaehyun actually hates he has to do this with you, the obligatory politician’s son smile and the correction, “Harvard.”

He hates even more that you roll your eyes, and respond, “Of course.”

Are you making fun of him or are you actually put off by the fact he’s following in his dad’s legacy? It’s endlessly frustrating that this is as unreadable as a book with no words, that he can frown the way he is and still glean no feeling out of you,“What’s that supposed to mean?”

With an easy smile, you quickly tick off the list of his useless accomplishments, each one a strike against him, “I mean, you’re Jaehyun Jung. Chapter president of Nu Chi Theta, captain of the baseball team, and perennial dean’s list member. It’d be an insult to Harvard if you didn’t grace it with your presence.”

He’s not really any of that anymore. Maybe he should’ve opened with the fact that he’s just Jaehyun Jung, JD, now, that’s the one and only thing he wants to focus on being. He never thought you cared about any of that stuff, you’d never seemed to at school. When all of campus stretched him each and every direction, asking for a way into date parties without an invite, a extra ticket to the game that he had, the answers to his problem sets that he finished first, you never did. You just wanted someone to send your profane messages to, to gripe about Johnny’s behavior and complain about your communications case partner and marvel at how pretty Lake Michigan looked in the snow.

“Anyways, I passed the bar in May and moved to New York the next week,” Jaehyun thinly continues on, before something sparks in his mind. He’d only heard music while walking in, not the television, too, and that was weird. He just has to ask, “By the way, why wasn’t the TV on when I came in?”

"What? What do you mean?”

He doesn’t understand why you’re confused, he’d thought that’d be enough. But maybe not, so he takes out his phone and opens up the calendar, where all of the games are programmed in as he does every season. He points out the date for you in case you can't see, "It’s October Twenty Eighth. That means tonight is g—,”

Your hand dips for a second. A dewdrop of vodka spills upon the back of your palm when you finish his sentence in a hushed voice, the premiere instance of any feeling he can pluck out, halfway sure it’s awe, “Game one of the World Series.”

He can do the math now, it’s been more than three years since he’s last seen you, but he swears you’re the exact same you of then, copied and pasted right next to him. Your elbow is so close he could feign a slipped inch and get the glorious moment of his bare arm brushing yours once again. Baseball is your thing, not just yours, not just his, but _yours,_ as in, together. He’d met you because of baseball, had you for that night because of baseball, and you knowing this date by memory just like he has it in his phone really makes it feel like nothing had fucking changed.

“Baby love!” Sehun warbles, head poked out of the glass door to beckon you back into the apartment. 

Jaehyun can feel eyebrows rocket into his hairline with utter shock. Baby… what? Baby was strange enough but… baby love? Is that actually what this is? He has to down the rest of his drink in quick succession to tempt his mind into not going there. 

“What’s up, Jung?” Sehun slaps him across the back with total geniality, clearly not knowing any of it, then goes right up to you and scoops you up, hand gentle on your arm as he lures you away from the conversation. 

“H-hey Sehun,” Jaehyun can only fumble in return, watching the two of you speaking closely, heads pressed so tightly side by side he can’t make out where your ponytail is from where Sehun’s long tresses are swept over.

Oops, his mind goes there. Is that really why you’d moved from Chicago to New York, to come live with your boyfriend in his nice Upper East Side apartment? 

"Hey, are you feeling okay?"

He's thoroughly annoyed at everything and everyone right now. He doesn’t get why Jennie can’t just do her own thing, why she insists on being by his side at every possible moment and why you and Sehun are still standing that closely by the beer pong table. Was he not just your friend from Columbia back then, was there more to it this whole time and Jaehyun let himself get swept up in that delusion somehow? 

"Yeah, it's just... really hot in there,” he mutters.

He also can't understand why Jennie doesn’t just read the room and not flirt with him now, “Well, you don't have to be that obvious about it. I know the dress looks good, and you’re more than welcome to take it off me later.”

No, no, he hadn’t wanted you to take off the dress because you’d just. You’d looked so cute in it.

Good god. What is he doing. 

“Yeah,” Jaehyun idly answers his companion’s seductive request. Because he did have that thought before, that untying the ties on Jennie’s slip would be fun for him later on in the night, but he doesn’t want to do that anymore. When she was the only choice, sure, but she’s not the only choice anymore. 

“Are you okay?"

He feels his fingers idly tap against the small of her back in what he hopes comes across as a gesture of reassurance, but he grimaces at the sensation of silk, and not whatever cottony goodness he’s sure has been spun to make your dress. ”I could just use another drink, no worries." 

He can hear Johnny and Lucas loudly betting on the beer pong match from the moment he steps back inside and truth be told, he’s beyond irked at his best friend. How did the subject of you not come up one time during their time at the firm together, John couldn’t have mentioned in passing that you had moved? Of course, Jaehyun supposes that Johnny would have no idea how close you actually were, didn’t know that you texted every day, and because of that there was no reason for him to bring it up in any capacity. 

But as he sits on the couch — what he’d intended to do instead of get a drink, at the perfect vantage point to see how brightly you smile when you sink a cup, how it gets even brighter when Sehun sinks one of his — he really wishes Johnny had. Honestly, Jaehyun doesn’t care if it’s embarrassing to admit, though maybe he never would out loud, but he’s thought about that night more times than is okay, probably on a level that is borderline creepy. He would’ve liked to know that you had a boyfriend this whole time, nipped that in the bud, before he convinced himself there was a whole trough of uncontrollable, overflowing emotion in his chest for you. Sehun’s definitely your boyfriend, you’ve kissed him on the cheek once already, and Jaehyun knows what kind of privilege it is. Having your mouth on his was something he’d never be able to replicate, not with any girl, ever, and he knows you wouldn’t just do that with anyone. 

Jennie leans over his shoulder, and it's obvious everything's changed. Her hair cascading into his face is typically an aphrodisiac, the Juicy perfume she wears usually intoxicating, but all of it is overwhelming right now. She whispers right into his ear, “Should we get out of here, J?”

“Nah—, I..." He can’t say he wants to sit here for the rest of the night, wondering if he’ll get a glimpse of what will happen at the end of the party, if you’ll be okay with Sehun taking you to bed like Jaehyun himself almost had at the end of a different one. 

But he’s already seeing enough, because when you sink the final cup you get so excited you leap right into Sehun’s arms, legs flying around his waist to hold onto him. Sehun hops up and down in victory, then cups your face with his hands and presses a kiss right against the sunny side of your cheek. It’s a place Jaehyun regrets he didn’t get to kiss because he was too caught up in everything else. It’s cute. It’s so cute. He would’ve kissed your cheek ten times, a hundred times if you wanted. 

“Rosie texted, said the VIP line is out the door already!”

“Fine, let’s go,” he grumbles, getting out and heading right to the door with no time to waste. The clack of Jennie’s heels behind him is the only sign that she’s following, he doesn't bother to turn and check, he's that focused on getting the hell out. The apartment is too nice, and he knows it’s because you insist on keeping it neat like you did your place at Northwestern. Johnny used to complain about your high standards of cleanliness. 

Nothing’s changed but everything has. 

The hallway is quiet, blessedly so, there’s no music or chatter or the twinkly sound of your laughter to drive him insane.  Or maybe he speaks too soon, because Jennie stomps right up to him and whines, “What’s wrong, you look like you’ve wanted to be anywhere else all of tonight.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I want to go clubbing,” he apologizes, because he knows it’s right to do so, and stops one breath short of endings things with her right then and there. Breaking up with a girl his father maybe sort of likes for a girl that is not available would be ludicrous, but he wants to. He really, really wants to. But he has to think as Jaehyun Jung, JD, and not whatever moony eyed boy he was secretly in college, make his excuses and go before he ruins whatever carefully laid plans the universe has for him, “I’m just. I'm going to head home. Baseball’s on. Goodnight."

He’s crazy for this. For all of this. 

It’s been three and a half years, and in that time, he’s dated two girls halfway seriously, hooked up with many more and is now in a whatever this is with Jennie. The logical implication would be that a girl he’d talked to in person for the third time today, that ignored him for the entirety of those three and half years, would not be so firmly lodged in his heart, even still. But when has logic ever been a real thing that worked when Jaehyun thought of you? You’d opened your very first conversation with _who the fuck is this_ , and instead of finding it incredibly rude, he’d laughed and proceeded to text you that entire break. You hadn’t spoken to him after graduation and he’d still see you in little bits and pieces in Cambridge - when the river would freeze and get dusted with snow, when he found the specialty pie shop down the road from his apartment, when the first baseball game of the season came on and he was so hurt he wasn’t playing. 

Seeing you in person was weird, speaking to you even weirder, but maybe a message would be different. That’s how it started, so maybe it all comes back to texting you. He’ll have to go to bed now, and not even watch the World Series, because if he does, he’ll spend the whole time debating if you’re watching it tonight or if you’re not because your boyfriend hates baseball. He’ll schedule it for a time that’ll make it seem like he’s not preoccupied with it all and hope he gets a bit of sleep that isn’t plagued with remembrance.  
  


> [2020 Oct 29, 3:27 am] **jhj:** it was nice to see you tonight

He presses send before he can second guess himself, glittery contact name of yours smiling up at him. You’re _pie girl_ to him, even still. From sending said message until the moment his head hits the pillow in his lonely bedroom, he’s consumed with a singular thought, the wonder if you’d left his contact untouched, if his number in your phone book was still listed under _my mvp._ Because honestly, the reason why Jaehyun hates parties now is that he knows none of them will ever come close to topping that one. Until tonight.

—

“Hey prez! Really going to miss you!”

Jaehyun doesn’t even know who the hell that person is, much less why they continue to call him prez. He’d stepped down from being NCT president, as is tradition, at the beginning of spring semester so that Sungchan could take over. It’d been somewhat of a relief, no longer needing to be at the head of the room, at the center of a crowd, no responsibilities and favors and whispering words. But he supposes reputations are forever, and from now until forever, he’ll be known as Jaehyun Jung, NCT president. He kind of hates it. 

He’s about ready to bounce from this party and sleep, his dad is going to give him shit if he shows up to graduation tomorrow morning with dark circles and a hangover. But he can’t, not now, not when his phone is pinging with a rapid series of texts,  
  


> [2017 May 21, 10:36 pm] **pie girl:** are you at nct tn  
>  [2017 May 21, 10:36 pm] **pie girl:** what the fuck am i doing here  
>  [2017 May 21, 10:36 pm] **pie girl:** why the fuck is john obsessed with canoeing idgi

He has to be getting pranked, right, one of his brothers had gotten your phone somehow and is now texting him, pretending that they’re here at the house, a place you would never show up. At first, he thinks it’s dumb that he actually looks up to search around the room, thinking that there are far too many people to actually find you here before you leave. 

But then, in the quietest corner. There you are.  
  


> [2017 May 21, 10:37 pm] **jhj:** hahaha. hes so weird.  
>  [2017 May 21, 10:37 pm] **jhj** : im here tho

He has to go over there. 

Jaehyun has only seen you in fleeting glimpses and glances this semester, you’ve both been insanely busy and had never found a moment to actually hang out. He’s never known that you do this thing when you’re relieved, you press a hand right into the front of your neck, like you’re opening up your airway to breathe again. That’s what he feels like right now. Those glimpses and glances had been nice - a tableau of you in a Northwestern jersey surely borrowed from John with your Yankees cap on instead, or bundled up in your winter coat when it snowed too hard or in the sweater and jeans that you always seemed to wear to class. But you, now, here in his house, this is totally different. That dress is far too much for a disgusting place like this, too charming and too flirty, in this beautiful wine color with these cute polka dots. It’s a date dress, you wore a date dress to his final frat party.  Not for him, you didn’t wear the dress for him. You probably thought you looked nice in it, you'd never wear it for a dumb ass dude like him. __  
  


> [2017 May 21, 10:37 pm] **pie girl:** great now i can sit in this corner and text u until its socially acceptable to be seen leaving

“You don’t have to text me. I’m right here.”

He feels kind of bad that he so obviously scares you when you’re not paying attention, but he couldn’t help it, the drop of teasing he’d felt when he saw the message preview pop up on his phone. You straighten like he’s a professor coming to scold you, and your greeting is even tighter, “Oh, Jaehyun. Hi.”

“Oh, hi, yourself,” he greets, trying to stay cool, and ends up reaching to gently tug at the end of your braid. He has no idea why he does it, the gesture belies familiarity that you don’t quite have, but he has to keep the façade up, “I can’t believe the first time I see you at one of these is the last time I’ll see you at one of these.”

If he’d known you before, the year would’ve gone so much better, he’s sure of it. He would’ve taken you to the Christmas baseball banquet instead of Wendy Shon, he knows he would’ve bickered with you all night about stats and batting averages and who had really deserved the team awards. And he absolutely would’ve preferred you be his date to NCT’s final formal instead of Krystal Jung, because she’d hooked up with Yuta at the end of the night. While he wasn’t that mad about it, she wasn't really anything to him, you didn’t seem like you would be that disrespectful about it. 

But he has to remind himself that you haven’t had a full conversation in person, he can’t go around playing with your hair like that or wondering what you’re smiling about when it’s truly not his business. 

“Funny how things work out like that,” you hum softly, a strand of your hair falling out of your braid right into your face.

“Funny,” he hums in return, unable to keep the tiny grin at bay with the sight of you, all nervous and shy like this, tucked into yourself around the bottle of blue alcohol in your hands. He decides to ask after it to keep the conversation going,“Did John leave you that Hypnotiq? I thought your drink of choice was vodka.”

“I just think it’s pretty.” Even in this dark lighting, a cotton candy pink blush diffuses across the freckles he can see on your cheek, made more obvious when you tilt your head back to stare at the bottle held aloft. “Don’t you think so?”

Yes, of course he thinks you’re pretty. You’re so, so pretty. “I do.”

“Yoooo, y/n! What’s up, I’ve never seen you at one of these!” Moon is there to break the tension which is great, but also can he just go away? This is a conversation you’re supposed to have alone and Jaehyun can’t do that when his buddy is so obviously sloshed.

“Hey Moon, good to see you!” You let Taeil hug you, and should Jaehyun have gone for a hug? He thought that wasn’t your thing. 

“Where’s your boyfriend, though?” Taeil asks, naive air about him as a result of his intoxication.

But while Taeil is drunk and Jaehyun is sober, the former was the only one to put the correct conclusion together. You’re here in a _red_ dress, at a party that’s so clearly been advertised - ugh, by the brothers, in another stupid idea he’d hated - as a stoplight party, green available, yellow something that’s complicated, red taken. Maybe he owes them though, for this inside glimpse of information this provides. 

“My, my what?” You’re stuttering and embarrassed, that much is clear. You’re going to spill what you’d been loathe to mention in your conversations, you have some boyfriend, he probably goes to a better school, is smarter, works harder, is far better at baseball than Jaehyun could ever be, was drafted by the Yankees already and you’re going to go off and live a perfect life. 

Uh oh. He’s in trouble.

“This is a stoplight party,” Taeil slurs, and Jaehyun is grateful he doesn’t have to explain. “Green means single and ready to mingle. Yellow is a maybe. Red means you’re in a relationship. You’re wearing red.”

You get flustered in less than a half a second, gesturing wildly with your hands to the point the Hypnotiq starts to slosh, “I didn’t know! I don’t come to these things, you said it yourself!” 

Maybe he’d jumped to a conclusion too fast. Maybe he embarrassment wasn’t because you were hiding something, but because you had nothing to hide. Interesting, interesting. Jaehyun dissuades his friend from saying anymore when he notices how amped up you’re getting, “Lay off her, Moon."

But Taeil hones in on something else entirely, “Wait, is Joy Park wearing red?”  He peeks over to the makeshift bar and Joy is definitely over there, in a totally different outfit than what she was wearing only an hour before. 

“She was in green when we walked over! She must’ve changed. Fuck me,” Jaehyun gripes, sending her an uncomfortable head nod when she meets his eye and waves. 

She’d been getting on him for an entire month to introduce her to Ten, his project partner in one of his political science classes. He’d invited both of them tonight, intent on setting them up in a private room together and letting them get all their lustiness out in one go, fairly sure his friend reciprocated the girl's affections. But Joy had taken it a step too far by wearing red when she wasn’t actually in a relationship with his buddy yet, and Jaehyun’s never going to hear the end of it when Ten finds he's enabled this display.

“Oh, she definitely wants to, buddy,” Taeil saucily announces, then punches Jaehyun right in the chest with more force than expected and lazily prances away with a parting call of, “good luck with that.”

“Lovely,” he grumbles, knowing that there’s going to be a rumor about him and Joy Park going through the house in no less than five minutes. 

He catches you sipping from the Hypnotiq bottle again, peering out into the grinding mass of bodies on the dance floor with a wrinkle in your nose, like you hate the idea of being in a crowd too. It’s a bizarre, crushing kind of silence that next overwhelms the time. You have no problem talking to him over messages and you’d been having a fine back and forth before Taeil interrupted, yet now he has no idea what to do. He doesn’t want you to leave, though he knows you’re probably going to since the pledges are changing out soon. 

He has to do something, he has to. 

As nonchalantly as possible, he asks, “Hey, by the way, is Mark flying in for graduation? Your friend from Columbia too?” 

You’d briefly mentioned your graduation plans - careful to not slip in any mention of your missing parents - that your brother and your friend were the only people you’d have at the ceremony. But you hadn’t gotten further than that, he doesn’t know any of the details. He'd told you his first, the grandiose dinner he gets in Evanston and the pompous party he’s going to have when he gets back to Chicago, but he wants to know yours, for a specific reason.

“Yeah, they’re both flying into O’Hare in the morning,” you answer blankly, thinking of something else. “I actually should probably get going soon, because I need to get up early and pick them up. What time is it, anyways?”

Your thumb flicks at the lock button on your phone and Jaehyun has to squint for a second when the brightness blares into his eyes. But as the tiny characters come into focus, he can feel a literal icicle of displeasure stab right into his chest. 

“Yeah, I think I have to get out of here—,”

Maybe it’s uncouth of him, but he yanks the device out of your hands and brings it up closely to his face to make sure his (still sober) eyesight hadn’t been fooling him. He can feel his mouth downturn into a frown, then he kicks up a big fuss, “Wait, wait, wait, why is my name just Jaehyun parentheses baseball in your phone? Hold up.”

He’s not sure why he expected anything different, it seems like a very you thing to do to not have funny nicknames in your contact book. But. But, he’s had you in his phone as _pie girl_ since that day he saw you get a plate of whipped cream in the face for your dance team and hoped that you might’ve thought up something silly in return. That means he’d somehow slipped past the cracks, that he was close enough to you, or you saw him a way that you found it appropriate to give him a nickname. It wouldn’t be something much, it’d be something funny like _fucking weirdo who texts me,_ or _Johnny’s annoying teammate_ , or _that guy I somehow never see but talk to anyways._ He doesn’t know what _Jaehyun (baseball)_ means. 

He has one shot here. You haven’t stolen your phone back so you’re at least somewhat fine with what he’s doing, without hesitation he goes right through your contacts and opens his up, weighing the gravity of what he’s thinking of. There’s a very gratuitous kind of nickname he could give himself - not sexual, not inappropriate, not profane, but over the top in the way that he thinks might change a lot of things. Things he’s not ready to change but wants to anyways. He didn’t realize he wanted to until he saw that wine colored dress on you, then he got it. That made him want to change out of his green shirt and put on a red one instead because he was _jealous_ you might already be taken. 

He types out the modification in a flash, it’s not very long, and he can’t help the pleased beam that appears on his face as he hands it back over to you, “Here.”

When you don’t immediately smile in return, that’s when he gets nervous. You don’t look happy at all, eyes narrowed as you scrutinize his edit, trying to gauge how severe your rejection of him is going to be when you register what he’s meant by this. You’re probably going to laugh in his face, then walk right out of the NCT house forever. At least he tried. 

What he gets, instead, is your blurted, “What the fuck is _my MVP_ supposed to mean?”  Not a rejection.

You don’t look mean or upset about it, truly just confused, and he’d been a little dense for expecting you to understand without justification. When you think of an MVP, your first instinct is probably to call up an image of Derek Jeter, Yankees captain and Hall of Famer. Out of nowhere, he has one final opportunity to make this known to you, he has to explain it in a way that you’ll _get it_ get it, and he can’t afford to make a single mistake. 

Nervous beyond belief, he has to force himself to blink once, eyes dried out from the pure length of staring he’d been indulging in, and he clears his throat to quietly request, “Let’s talk for a second, can we?”

“Jaehyun, what? Here?” You’re half-shouting because it’s so freaking loud. He can barely hear you too, though that may be his own damn heart’s fault for echoing the timbre of the music.

This is it, here we go. 

Shaking his head, he carefully loosens the Hypnotiq bottle out of your hands and replaces it with the breadth of his palm, taking your hand for the very first time. You have such a warm little hand, he really wants to peek back and have the image of you clung onto him, but he can’t, if he looks at you right now he’s going to lose all of his barely-held control. He can’t believe he’s like this, losing his shit over _holding hands_ with a girl for the first time, but he’s going to be a huge fucking cliché and think it. You’re not like any of the other girls he knows, and he will probably never know anybody like you.

The side room is not quiet enough, but he doesn’t think he can wait anymore to have this conversation. It’s not like he can take you to his place to have the talk in total solitude, you’d probably find him a wackjob for suggesting that without at least explaining himself first. So he’ll do his best to make this option appropriate, find the secluded corner in the back that’s half tucked away behind a curtain, hope that the black velvet couch hasn’t been the victim of too many lurid activities tonight. He sinks himself right onto the middle of it, suddenly tired with the emotional frenzy this party has escalated, and pats the cushion beside him for you to join.  Even with the invitation, you’re still standing there, hair loose out of your braid, eyes everywhere, on the bottle he’d left on the ground, on his shoes, on him, on the people around you, on your fingers still tucked into one another's, and he wonders how you don’t know already. 

Go big or go home, that was always his mantra on the field, and even if it didn’t get him into the big leagues, it’s gotta work here, right? He can’t tell you he loves you, because that would be utterly, utterly insane for the first real conversation you’ve had in person. But he has to get as close as he possibly can. 

He gently tugs at your hand so you’re compelled to move to the couch beside him, yet the trajectory you end up on lands you right against the breadth of his lap, skirt quivering with the motion as a breath of a gasp escapes your mouth. He feels bad for not asking permission first, he hadn’t fully intended to be this blatant - he only thought maybe you’d sit on that cushion right there, maybe he could put his hand on your knee - but you also don’t scramble to get up right away. When you nearly topple over and he has to grab your thigh to catch you, your cheeks go visibly aflame with the sensation of his palm there.

“You must know that I won team MVP this year.” He’s never been this shy in his entire life. He’s usually good at pretending he’s full to the brim with undiluted, unabashed confidence, but he has no idea how you feel. And not to be cocky, but he usually knows. He wonders if you’d seen the Big Ten trophy on his Instagram after they’d won the tournament, if you thought he’d put on a show playing defense, if you stood to cheer for both the home runs he hit that day. He knows you were at the game, you were at every game, but he just. Doesn’t Know.

That hair is in your face again, it’s such a cute sight, but it’s blocking your face, your pretty, pretty face. Gosh, you must be the prettiest girl on all of campus, in all of Illinois, maybe, so he just has to tuck it away, back into your braid, so he can see you.  And then it’s a lot, having you up close like this, the tiny galaxy of freckles, the spot of blue by your lip where the Hypnotiq had stained, the tremble of your hand over his on your leg as you hold onto him for dear life. 

He has to shift away, closing his eyes so he doesn’t go woozy, instinctively leaning his head into you to brace himself for the soft proclamation from the very, very depths of his heart, “And well, I’m, I’m yours.”

It’s not hard to hear the disbelief in your voice as you answer, “You’re mine?”

Jaehyun doesn’t blame you for that, he needs to be direct about it. He turns back your way, brave enough to meet your eyes for one final, punctuating moment, and fuck it, he’ll promise, he’ll vow, he’ll swear, whatever. Whatever he has to do to make you understand. 

“I’m yours. If you want me.”

It feels good, admitting this out loud for once, all that he’s bottled in through those glimpses and glances, what had subconsciously been building this entire semester since that December message.Sure, he has no idea what you’re going to say now. If you’re going to scramble off him with a look of disgust on your face, give him the middle finger, tell him to fuck off, all of those are on the table, but he’ll deal with that when he has to deal with it. Perhaps he'll get the perfunctory response, the kind denial, the slipped in excuse, a sympathetic smile that won't soften the blow. Or maybe things will go his way, he’ll get to kiss you right now, and take you home and that’ll be the extent of it, what would stereotypically stem from this kind of confession at this kind of event with this kind of person. 

But that’s not what he wants, truly not at all close.

There was a reason he wanted to know your graduation plans, because he has plans of his own. He can see it so clearly, the picture that he has in his mind. It’s not just limited to this night. 

Sure, he can’t help wanting to kiss you and sleep with you and all the provocative implications that free flow from a night like tonight. He’s thinking of after that though - after your graduation, after you get back from your friend's Columbia graduation - when you both go back home to Chicago. Of course he’ll ask you out the moment he can, he’ll call you up instead of messaging you this time because it’d gone so poorly on Valentine’s Day when he tried. He even knows what he’s going to say, _I know you’re not a big date person, but I’d figured you’d might be willing to make an exception, maybe. Possibly. For me._ He’d take you to Navy Pier and you’d get ice cream cones and sit right on the lake. You’d get to have your second conversation, which is wholly ironic considering, well, all of this, and maybe you’d let him kiss you then. He’d be fine with you not letting him steal a kiss now, if you said yes to one date.

He really just wants to take you out once. 

That’s not true. He wants to take you out more than once, there’s a thousand and one things he’d like to do - take you to a White Sox game and try to get you on his side, ride a tandem bike through the park and take you to dinner right after, at a place where the waiter would frown at your sweaty faces but not make a fuss. He wants to take you home and have you meet his parents, because he swears that even though you’re not the kind of girl they’d usually like, he knows you’re the kind of girl they’d love. He wants to take you back to your home, to discover the place that made you you, to finally meet Mark because he just knows they’re going to be best friends and tell you that it’s okay if you get sad about your parents sometimes, because he’ll always be there if you need. And he wants to bring you to Cambridge, to have you as his safety net while he tries to find himself in a new place, and finally confess that his heart is more than a lot broken that he won’t be able to play baseball anymore. He's sure it won't hurt so badly then, this little part of him dying, because you always, _always_ know exactly what to say. 

It’s not just one date.

He’s yours. If he’s being truly honest with himself, he’s already been yours for a while, maybe from the very first day you had responded back to him with that rude, profane text message. Know how he knows that? Because even if you say no right now - a very legitimate possibility he’ll have to be okay with, because he wants whatever you want - he is still fully convinced that he’ll live the rest of his life being yours, and really, there's nothing that could change that.

So, it’s go big or go home, he has to try and kiss you first. Because he wants to know what happens after, and he seriously doubts you will beat him to the punch.

** fin. **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOPE U ENJOYED!!!!!! XO this story will live rent free in my head forever.
> 
> shamless promo plug x 2: go check out my new story a melancholy weekend in december! i have to puff myself up LOL


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